About
The project EMOROB analyses one of the most important challenges we are facing today - human/robot interaction. Specifically, the EMOROB explores genealogy of the affective programming and social robotics field which started developing in the early1990s. Here, the imagination relating to diagnosis and treatment of autism have played a crucial role as one of the first application domain of the social robotics. The project aims to explore the field of emotional computing in the context of autism treatment, in particular their cultural metaphors and codes. The main question is: How did the metaphors of social robotics and affective computing used in the context of autism treatment influence and mirror our view of human embodiment, agency, inequalities, and medical treatment itself? To explore this question, the project carries out critical discourse analysis, analysis of archives and interviews with people in the field. Analytical reflections of EMOROB will contribute to the public debate on the societal impact of autism and affective computing cultural imagery.
The main overall analytical objective of the project is to empirically enrich and theoretically advance our understanding of computing sociality, cultural representations of autism and the social and social consequences and backgrounds of emotional robotics in the 21st century.
Research aim and objectives
Research aim and objectives
The project aims are:
- a) to analyse genealogy of the cultural imagery reflecting the diagnosis of autism and human-robot interaction since 1990s, and
- b) to explore epistemic maps interconnecting autism, robotics and ideas about normality, otherness, more-than-human sociality or social bodies. By combining critical discourse analysis with material semiotic analysis, the EMOROB seeks to investigate empirically the dynamics and complexities of affective computing practices, which until now have hardly been recognised in their social and cultural complexity, for a better understanding of computing sociality and computing bodies in contemporary societies
EMOROB asks:
How do the metaphors of social robotics and affective computing used in the context of autism treatment influence and mirror our view of human embodiment, agency, inequalities, and medical treatment itself?
How is computed sociality and computed bodies enacted within contemporary social robotic technology in the context of autism treatment?
Other analytical questions are:
Q1: How is knowledge and cultural representations about ASD enacted and mobilised within affective computing?
Q2: How are patterns of emotional interaction computed and which sensory tools are involved? How are particular emotional algorithms, artificial skin, and emotion sensors computed and designed? How are they related/embedded in cultural norms and expectations?
Q3: How are different notions of sociality, emotions, more-than human sociality and empathy embodied, gendered, ethically situated, biopolitically de-contextualised, and re-programmed?