Active Inference Through Energy Minimization in Multimodal Affective Human-Robot Interaction.

During communication, humans express their emotional states using various modalities (e.g., facial expressions and gestures), and they estimate the emotional states of others by paying attention to multimodal signals.

An Information Theoretic Approach to Reveal the Formation of Shared Representations.

Modality-invariant categorical representations, i.e., shared representation, is thought to play a key role in learning to categorize multi-modal information.

Measurement of Three-Dimensional Force Applied to Elastic Suture Training Pads for Laparoscopic Suturing.

Laparoscopic surgery requires highly trained skills to manipulate the laparoscopic instruments. The effectiveness and efficiency of manipulation training are expected to increase by quantitatively evaluating how a series of trainee's manipulations are different from those conducted by skilled surgeons and providing feedback. However, such detailed feed- back is not available because adequate measurement systems have not been proposed to measure the precise forces applied to suture training pads without disturbing the delicate manipulations.

Integrated Cognitive Architecture for Robot Learning of Action and Language.

The manner in which humans learn, plan, and decide actions is a very compelling subject. Moreover, the mechanism behind high-level cognitive functions, such as action planning, language understanding, and logical thinking, has not yet been fully implemented in robotics. In this paper, we propose a framework for the simultaneously comprehension of concepts, actions, and language as a first step toward this goal.

Mexican-Hat-Like Response in a Flexible Tactile Sensor Using a Magnetorheological Elastomer.

A significant challenge in robotics is providing a sense of touch to robots. Even though several types of flexible tactile sensors have been proposed, they still have various technical issues such as a large amount of deformation that fractures the sensing elements, a poor maintainability and a deterioration in the sensitivity caused by the presence of a thick and soft covering. As one solution for these issues, we proposed a flexible tactile sensor composed of a magnet, magnetic transducer and dual-layer elastomer, which consists of a magnetorheological and nonmagnetic elastomer sheet.