Animation, Theory of Mind and Humanoid Robots: Creating a Social Robot Video Task

Abstract

Abstract Theory of Mind (ToM) —a social cognitive ability commonly under-developed in autistic individuals— is necessary to attribute mental states to oneself and others. Research into robot-assisted interventions to improve ToM ability in autistic children has become increasingly popular. However, no appropriate task currently exists to measure the degree of efficacy of robot-assisted interventions targeting ToM ability. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how animation techniques and principles can be leveraged to develop and produce videos of humanoid robots interacting, which could selectively measure ToM.