Kathryn Golden
HCI and User Research MSIS Professional
Academic Research
This page contains abstracts and downloadable files of my academic research.
Equality and Hierarchy in Human-Robot Interaction (2016)
Written with Ms. Kimberly Stowers
Advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics have created opportunities for robots to evolve into more socially-oriented agents. Because of this many relationships between robots and humans have shifted towards partnership. In order to create these partnerships and have them be accepted by the human partners, the robotic system must interact in a way that is synonymous with the human’s relationship with other humans. This creates the need to explore factors such as culture, personality, and cognition, which may affect human perception of robots. Our discussion focuses on cultural challenges, specifically regarding equality and hierarchy in human-robot relationships. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that cultural constructs affect humans’ perception and interaction with robots. For example, it has been found that national culture relates to attitudes toward robots (Bartneck, Suzuki, Kanda, and Nomura 2007). This connection may also be extended to humans’ satisfaction and trust in their robot counterparts (Li, Rau, and Li 2010).
Despite their usefulness in defining human-robot relationships, these findings are limited in that they treat each cultural construct as a separate entity. Humans’ perception and interaction with robots may be more completely understood if explored at the intersection of multiple cultural constructs. In the literature surrounding culture and its measurement, the joining of two common concepts, individualism/collectivism and power distance, has been explored in order to establish more intricate dimensions of culture. While the intersection of these concepts has been explored in human-human interaction, there remains much to be learned regarding their application to human-robot interaction. We therefore seek to examine these dimensions and propose ways in which they may apply to human-robot interaction. In order to do so, we will first define national culture and explore how it affects human-robot interaction. We will then explore individualism/collectivism and power distance and their respective effects on human-robot interaction. Finally, we will explore the merging of these two concepts how the resulting dimensions may impact human-robot interaction.
Differences in the Use of AI Assistants: How Human Values Influence AI Assistant Use or Disuse (2018)
Written with the guidance of Dr. Kenneth Fleischmann and Dr. Randolph Bias
This report is an analysis of the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) personal assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa through the examination of how an individual’s personal values influence their use of these devices. These assistants have become a built-in component of many technologies, and yet there is not a large amount of research on their utilization. Like most consumer level technologies, individual preferences determine how and when they will be used. Artificial assistants exist in a multitude of forms that most technology-using people will interact with, from bot assistance on websites or through the phone, to the personalized artificial intelligences used like the aforementioned Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.
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These specific assistants are utilized for everything from turning on the news to making purchases with the owner’s credit card information. They are privy to a multitude of personal information, and like most new technology, the level of comfort that people have using these devices varies depending on individual preferences. This report utilized a survey that focused on the Portrait Values Questionnaire created by Schwartz (2007) and made gender neutral by Verma, Fleischmann, and Koltai (2017) as well as a set of individual interviews. The set of ten interviews were utilized to gain a greater understanding of individual perceptions of these devices and allow for a more in depth look at specific examples and perspectives that strengthened the findings from the survey.
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The ultimate purpose of the report was to analyze how human values affect an individual’s use of these devices as one step towards a greater understanding of human values impact on technology, and how technology can be best created for humanity in turn.