When performing actions with robots, attribution of intentionality affects the sense of joint agency.

Sense of joint agency (SoJA) is the sense of control experienced by humans when acting with others to bring about changes in the shared environment. SoJA is proposed to arise from the sensorimotor predictive processes underlying action control and monitoring. Because SoJA is a ubiquitous phenomenon occurring when we perform actions with other humans, it is of great interest and importance to understand whether-and under what conditions-SoJA occurs in collaborative tasks with humanoid robots.

Multilayer intensity modulated contact interventional radiotherapy (brachytherapy): Stretching the therapeutic window in skin cancer.

Interventional radiotherapy (IRT, brachytherapy) is a highly effective treatment method for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). Traditionally, the maximum depth of NMSC lesions considered eligible for contact IRT was 5 mm; however, following several national surveys and recent recommendations, such cut-off, lesions thicker than 5 mm may be treated by contact IRT. The use of image guidance in defining the actual depth in treating NMSC to correctly identify clinical target volume (CTV) and prevent unnecessary toxicity is of paramount importance.

Robot's Social Gaze Affects Conflict Resolution but not Conflict Adaptations.

Robots are a new category of social agents that, thanks to their embodiment, can be used to train and support cognitive skills such as cognitive control. Several studies showed that cognitive control mechanisms are sensitive to affective states induced by humor, mood, and symbolic feedback such as monetary rewards. In the present study, we investigated whether the social gaze of a humanoid robot can affect cognitive control mechanisms.

Human-likeness and attribution of intentionality predict vicarious sense of agency over humanoid robot actions.

Sense of Agency (SoA) is the feeling of being in control of one's actions and their outcomes. In a social context, people can experience a "vicarious" SoA over another human's actions; however, it is still controversial whether the same occurs in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The present study aimed at understanding whether humanoid robots may elicit vicarious SoA in humans, and whether the emergence of this phenomenon depends on the attribution of intentionality towards robots.

Human-like behavioral variability blurs the distinction between a human and a machine in a nonverbal Turing test.

Variability is a property of biological systems, and in animals (including humans), behavioral variability is characterized by certain features, such as the range of variability and the shape of its distribution. Nevertheless, only a few studies have investigated whether and how variability features contribute to the ascription of humanness to robots in a human-robot interaction setting. Here, we tested whether two aspects of behavioral variability, namely, the standard deviation and the shape of distribution of reaction times, affect the ascription of humanness to robots during a joint action scenario.

Intentions with actions: The role of intentionality attribution on the vicarious sense of agency in Human-Robot interaction.

Sense of Agency (SoA) is the feeling of control over one's actions and their consequences. In social contexts, people experience a "vicarious" SoA over other humans' actions; however, the phenomenon disappears when the other agent is a computer. This study aimed to investigate the factors that determine when humans experience vicarious SoA in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

To follow or not to follow your gaze: The interplay between strategic control and the eye contact effect on gaze-induced attention orienting.

Eye contact constitutes a strong communicative signal in human interactions and has been shown to modulate various cognitive processes and states. However, little is known about its impact on gaze-mediated attentional orienting in the context of its interplay with strategic top-down control. Here, we aimed at investigating how the social component of eye contact interacts with the top-down strategic control.

Non-melanoma Skin Cancer Treated by Contact High-dose-rate Radiotherapy (Brachytherapy): A Mono-institutional Series and Literature Review.

Background/aim: Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC) are the most common neoplasms worldwide and their incidence has been proven to increase in recent years and their treatment should aim at cancer cure as well as cosmetic and functional results. The aim of the study was to report the results of our mono-institutional series of high-dose-rate radiotherapy (cHDR-RT) in NMSC, based on a homogenous technique and two different treatment schedules.

Patients And Methods: All patients affected by NMSC who were consecutively evaluated and treated at our Interventional Oncology Center from October 2018 to August 2020, were included.

Social categorization and joint attention: Interacting effects of age, sex, and social status.

In the present study, we examine how person categorization conveyed by the combination of multiple cues modulates joint attention. In three experiments, we tested the combinatory effect of age, sex, and social status on gaze-following behaviour and pro-social attitudes. In Experiments 1 and 2, young adults were required to perform an instructed saccade towards left or right targets while viewing a to-be-ignored distracting face (female or male) gazing left or right, that could belong to a young, middle-aged, or elderly adult of high or low social status.

ERP markers of action planning and outcome monitoring in human - robot interaction.

The present study aimed to examine event-related potentials (ERPs) of action planning and outcome monitoring in human-robot interaction. To this end, participants were instructed to perform costly actions (i.e.

Examining joint attention with the use of humanoid robots-A new approach to study fundamental mechanisms of social cognition.

This article reviews methods to investigate joint attention and highlights the benefits of new methodological approaches that make use of the most recent technological developments, such as humanoid robots for studying social cognition. After reviewing classical approaches that address joint attention mechanisms with the use of controlled screen-based stimuli, we describe recent accounts that have proposed the need for more natural and interactive experimental protocols. Although the recent approaches allow for more ecological validity, they often face the challenges of experimental control in more natural social interaction protocols.

The role of the co-actor's response reachability in the joint Simon effect: remapping of working space by tool use.

The Simon effect, that is the advantage of the spatial correspondence between stimulus and response locations when stimulus location is task irrelevant, occurs even when the task is performed by two participants, each performing a go/no-go task. This effect, known as the joint Simon effect, does not emerge when participants sit outside each other's peripersonal space, thus suggesting that the presence of an active confederate in peripersonal space might provide a reference for response coding. The present study investigated whether this finding is due to the distance separating the participants and/or to the distance separating each participant and the other agent's response.

Attribution of intentional agency towards robots reduces one's own sense of agency.

In the presence of others, sense of agency (SoA), i.e. the perceived relationship between our own actions and external events, is reduced.

Do We Adopt the Intentional Stance Toward Humanoid Robots?

In daily social interactions, we need to be able to navigate efficiently through our social environment. According to Dennett (1971), explaining and predicting others' behavior with reference to mental states (adopting the ) allows efficient social interaction. Today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple's to GPS navigation systems.

On the role of eye contact in gaze cueing.

Most experimental protocols examining joint attention with the gaze cueing paradigm are "observational" and "offline", thereby not involving social interaction. We examined whether within a naturalistic online interaction, real-time eye contact influences the gaze cueing effect (GCE). We embedded gaze cueing in an interactive protocol with the iCub humanoid robot.

Response Coordination Emerges in Cooperative but Not Competitive Joint Task.

Effective social interactions rely on humans' ability to attune to others within social contexts. Recently, it has been proposed that the emergence of shared representations, as indexed by the Joint Simon effect (JSE), might result from interpersonal coordination (Malone et al., 2014).

Trial-by-trial modulations in the orienting of attention elicited by gaze and arrow cues.

Recent findings suggested that the orienting of attention towards gazed at locations (i.e., the gaze cueing effect) could result from the conflict emerging in incongruent trials between the spatial information conveyed by gaze direction and the target spatial position.

The role of perspective in discriminating between social and non-social intentions from reach-to-grasp kinematics.

Making correct inferences regarding social and individual intentions may be crucial for successful interactions, especially when we are required to discriminate between cooperative and competitive behaviors. The results of previous studies indicate that reach-to-grasp kinematic parameters may be used to infer the social or individual outcome of a movement. However, the majority of the studies investigated this ability by presenting reach-to-grasp movements from a third-person perspective only.

Joint Action: Mental Representations, Shared Information and General Mechanisms for Coordinating with Others.

In joint action, multiple people coordinate their actions to perform a task together. This often requires precise temporal and spatial coordination. How do co-actors achieve this? How do they coordinate their actions toward a shared task goal? Here, we provide an overview of the mental representations involved in joint action, discuss how co-actors share sensorimotor information and what general mechanisms support coordination with others.

Short gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist versus flexible antagonist versus clomiphene citrate regimens in poor responders undergoing in vitro fertilization: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: Poor responders represent a frustrating condition for couples undergoing IVF and clinicians, and their treatment remains disputed. To assess the efficacy and the most suitable protocol, we conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing three different protocols of ovarian stimulation in poor responder women: clomiphene citrate (CC) plus a high dose of gonadotropins and GnRH antagonist, flexible GnRH antagonist protocol and a short GnRH agonist protocol.

Patients And Methods: Between July 2014 and December 2015 we enrolled 250 poor responders in a previous IVF cycle at least 3 months before.

Action-space coding in social contexts.

In two behavioural experiments we tested whether performing a spatial task along with another agent changes space representation by rendering some reference frames more/less salient than others. To this end, we used a Simon task in which stimuli were presented in four horizontal locations thus allowing for spatial coding according to multiple frames of reference. In Experiment 1 participants performed a go/no-go Simon task along another agent, each being in charge of one response.

Exposure to Endocrine Disruptors and Nuclear Receptors Gene Expression in Infertile and Fertile Men from Italian Areas with Different Environmental Features.

Internal levels of selected endocrine disruptors (EDs) (i.e., perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), di-2-ethylhexyl-phthalate (DEHP), mono-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (MEHP), and bisphenol A (BPA)) were analyzed in blood/serum of infertile and fertile men from metropolitan, urban and rural Italian areas.

Eyes keep watch over you! Competition enhances joint attention in females.

The present study investigated if the gaze-cuing effect (i.e., the tendency for observers to respond faster to targets in locations that were cued by others' gaze direction than to not-cued targets) is modulated by the type of relationship (i.

Exposure to endocrine disrupters and nuclear receptor gene expression in infertile and fertile women from different Italian areas.

Within the PREVIENI project, infertile and fertile women were enrolled from metropolitan, urban and rural Italian areas. Blood/serum levels of several endocrine disrupters (EDs) (perfluorooctane sulfonate, PFOS; perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA; di-2-ethylhexyl-phthalate, DEHP; mono-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate, MEHP; bisphenol A, BPA) were evaluated concurrently with nuclear receptors (NRs) gene expression levels (ERa, ERb, AR, AhR, PPARg, PXR) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Infertile women from the metropolitan area displayed significantly higher levels of: BPA compared to fertile women (14.