Robot Woman Drawing Full Body

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Sensitivity to Differences in the Motor Origin of Drawings: From Human being to Robot

• Manos Tsakiris

Sensitivity to Differences in the Motor Origin of Drawings: From Man to Robot

• Helena De Preester,
• Manos Tsakiris

x

• Published: July eleven, 2014
• https://doi.org/10.1371/periodical.pone.0102318

Figures

Abstract

This written report explores the idea that an observer is sensitive to differences in the static traces of drawings that are due to differences in motor origin. In particular, our aim was to test if an observer is able to discriminate between drawings made by a robot and past a human in the case where the drawings contain salient kinematic cues for discrimination and in the case where the drawings only contain more subtle kinematic cues. We hypothesized that participants would exist able to correctly attribute the drawing to a human or a robot origin when salient kinematic cues are nowadays. In addition, our report shows that observers are also able to detect the producer behind the drawings in the absence of these salient kinematic cues. The design was such that in the absenteeism of salient kinematic cues, the drawings are visually very similar, i.e. simply differing in subtle kinematic differences. Observers thus had to rely on these subtle kinematic differences in the line trajectories betwixt drawings. However, not but motor origin (man versus robot) but also motor style (natural versus mechanic) plays a role in attributing a drawing to the correct producer, considering participants scored less loftier when the man hand draws in a relatively mechanical mode. Overall, this study suggests that observers are sensitive to subtle kinematic differences between visually like marks in drawings that take a different motor origin. We offering some possible interpretations inspired by the idea of "motor resonance".

Citation: De Preester H, Tsakiris M (2014) Sensitivity to Differences in the Motor Origin of Drawings: From Human being to Robot. PLoS 1 9(7): e102318. https://doi.org/x.1371/journal.pone.0102318

Editor: Josh Bongard, University of Vermont, United States of America

Received: March half-dozen, 2013; Accepted: June 18, 2014; Published: July eleven, 2014

Copyright: © 2014 De Preester, Tsakiris. This is an open-access commodity distributed under the terms of the Artistic Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This study was funded by the Inquiry Fund of Academy College Ghent (Belgium) to HDP and European Platform for Life Sciences, Mind Sciences and Humanities of the Volkswagen Foundation to MT. The funders had no role in written report pattern, data drove and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

In recent years, research on the visual perception both of the performing artist's gestures and movements (in particular in trip the light fantastic and theatre performances [1], [2]) and of static traces of gestures and movement (in particular in drawings and paintings) has grown rapidly. Perception of the artist'south movements and gestures, directly or via the traces left behind past them, is an essential part of much of our aesthetic feel and appreciation, considering they indicate the way a work of art is or has been created or performed. Generally, our appreciation of works of fine art would be partly anchored in the very creation or functioning of them, irrespective of the detail artistic subject field or medium. "How a musical passage is played, how a monologue is delivered, how a slice of fruit, a tree, or a person is delineated and shaded on sail, how a dance ensemble spreads apart and gathers together – all such creative realities depend on the living motion dynamics of the artists creating or performing the work – the composers, painters, choreographers, musicians, playwrights, actors, dancers, sculptors. Those dynamics are naturally embodied in the piece of work itself." [3] The diverse forms of art would thus embody the different kinetic dynamics of their creation, and these kinetic dynamics would constitute the footing of the aesthetic appreciation we have of works of art. Works of art, be they temporally defined as in music or spatially divers as in drawing, would depend on the living movement dynamics of the artists creating or performing the work. These dynamics are clearly embodied in the work itself in the case of, e.one thousand., trip the light fantastic toe, only would too be embodied in a drawing or a painting. Information technology is this embodiment of the dynamics of the creation that would give a work of art a certain qualitative graphic symbol.

Our focus is not on this latter merits, but on the thought implied in it that an observer is sensitive to the dynamics of the static traces of drawings or paintings that embody the cosmos process. In line with the embodied cognition approach [4], [5], and since the creative procedure is characterized by particular kinetic or motor dynamics, this would imply that we have to investigate the role of the motor body not only in art exercise, but also in the perception of works of fine art.

Thinking of the hand of an creative person in drawing, one can enquire how the beholder copes with the static traces of gestures of the draftsman. In his analysis of cartoon, art historian David Rosand takes into consideration the time it takes to draw a line and the time it takes to "read" or respond to that line [vi]. Elaborating on the thought that we rehearse the artist's gestures internally and follow their rhythms through space and thus through time, Rosand offers an intriguing analysis of how beholders respond to the human activity of drawing in the static traces of the drawing. Lines in drawings are essentially traces of the motility of the manus, the arm or the full torso. Since a drawn line would call back the procedure of its becoming through the act of drawing, information technology invokes a range of kinesthetic experiences and makes us participants in the act of cartoon. "As the direct record of motions of the body, a cartoon inevitably takes us back to the drawing hand, to the torso of the draughtsman, in a kinaesthetic circuit." [7] (p. xii) According to Rosand, when the beholder retraces the activity of drawing in her or his imagination, she tin participate in the experience of drawing and appreciate the work.

However, results from experimental inquiry in this relatively new field of interest have remained rather scarce. Recently, Freedberg and Gallese [viii] claimed that the mirror neuron system could explain a sense of inward imitation of the observed actions of others in pictures and sculptures that represent or depict movement. The idea that neural and cerebral systems contributing to action production are also active during the ascertainment of others' actions [9]–[15] has led to many proposals apropos the functional role of so-called 'mirror systems' in activity perception and action agreement [16]–[19]. Freedberg and Gallese [viii] use this idea of "motor resonance" to works of art that represent motility. Battaglia and colleagues [20] show articulate motor correlates of the relationship betwixt the artful quality of a work and the perception of implied movement within it, and it is likely that these responses are non restricted to strictly representational fine art, i.e. to realistic depictions of move [21]–[22].

Moreover, the thought of "motor resonance" may not but be applicative to the representation of motion in works of art, but also to the traces of the creation procedure of the work. Freedberg and Gallese merits that observers often "experience a form of somatic response to vigorous handling of the artistic medium and to visual evidence of the movement of the manus more than by and large" [8] (p. 202) and Gallese [23] conjectures that in observing the graphic traces of an creative person's gesture, the aforementioned motor centers required for producing the traces are active in the observer. "Our proposal posits that even the creative person's gestures producing the art work can induce an empathic engagement of the observer, past activating the simulation of the respective motor plan. The marks on the painting/sculpture are the visible traces of goal-directed movements, hence in principle capable of activating the somatotopically relevant motor areas in the observer's brain, as suggested by the mirror neuron research." [23] (p. 460) Studies indirectly suggesting that this is the case, bear witness that motor simulation can be induced in the observer's brain also when what is directly observed are the static graphic traces produced by the activity, such as a letter or a graphic stroke, and not the action itself [24]–[26]. A static form would activate the relevant motor codes for producing the course, and these motor codes would lead to a prediction of the resulting class. Equally such, handwritten letters are static stimuli in which movement is ascribed long later on the activity has happened. The brain thus makes a reconstruction of the action on the footing of static information [25]. Therefore, it is suggested that in the perception of a static course which is the trace of human motility, a simulation takes place of the dynamical processes that gave rise to it.

Freedberg & Gallese [8] stress the goal-orientated aspect of our embodied response to the static traces of an artist's gesture. In general, what seems to exist crucial in action ascertainment is that actions are goal oriented, rather than that they are performed by a human (or biological) actor. An fMRI-newspaper by Gazzola and colleagues specifically addressed this event [27]. The results showed that the mirror system was activated strongly by the sight of both man and robotic paw actions, with no significant differences between these 2 agents (but encounter [28]). Indeed, robotic manus actions can be functionally and qua overall motor embodiment like to homo hand actions. Thus, what seems to affair, is not the nature of the amanuensis as such (biological or mechanical) or its visual appearance, merely the specifics of its motor embodiment (functionally similar to ours or not). What enables an observer to understand the intended goal of an observed action, would be the shared (by agent and observer) embodiment of the intended goal. In brief, the motor behaviour on the basis of which goals are reached should be sufficiently similar. Therefore, information technology is supposed that an observer is capable of mirroring observed motor behaviour of an agent that is functionally sufficiently similar. Mirroring would not have place when observing actions executed by agents with which the observer does not share the aforementioned motor functionality. Therefore, the movements of many (merely not all) mechanical agents would not pb to motor understanding in a human observer.

A study by Umiltà [29] and by Umiltà and colleagues [30] explored if the observation of the visible consequences of an artistic gesture evokes a cortical representation of the motor human action that has generated it. In the get-go status, subjects observed a photo of a Lucio Fontana painting with one, ii or three vertical cuts made in a white sheet. A control group observed similar images (aforementioned shape, colour, position and direction of the cut) but artificially produced, i.eastward. digitally done with a computer (not to be confused with images eastward.grand. made past a reckoner controlled robot). They found that stronger mu rhythm suppression was evoked by the observation of an original work of art that consists of traces of the creative person's gestures (cuts), and less suppression past its bogus reproduction (lines) that is non the result of any real-world movement. Thus, in spite of a certain similarity between the images, an image of cuts evokes more cortical motor activation in the brain of the beholder (as exemplified by stronger reduced mu rhythm suppression) than an image of lines reproducing the cuts.

As is clearly visible on the beginning effigy provided in the study [xxx] an important dissimilarity between the ii conditions was that the lines of the artificial reproduction of the cuts did non reproduce the changing width of the cutting in the canvas. Every bit implied past the study, this is an important visual cue for perceiving how the cuts have been produced. In the absence of changing width, a line does not look as the result of a motion. The artificial character of the artificially reproduced cuts, and consequently that they were not produced in a motor style, was thus clear. This suggests that the observer is sensitive to whether a form is produced on the basis of (man) motion or digitally produced, and thus not having a motor origin.

In our study, we farther explored the sensitivity of an observer to the motor origin of static traces, i.east. nosotros concentrated on the question whether an observer is too sensitive to differences inside the motor origin condition. In extending the studies by Umiltà and colleagues, we aimed to test if an observer is sensitive to the differences, not between motor and non-motor origin, only between dissimilar motor origins: human and robot. We thus explored what happened, first, when stimuli were produced by different draftsmen (human and robot) that physically produce lines on the footing of different motor repertoires. Second, and since the images used in the studies by Umiltà and colleagues exhibited salient cues every bit to their motor origin, we besides explored the situation in which such salient cues for discrimination between different motor origins are absent-minded and only more than subtle kinematic cues are present. In summary, this study explores how sensitive nosotros are to differences in traces resulting from differences in (bio)mechanics and kinematics: are we merely sensitive to obvious traces resulting from differences in kinematics or are we too sensitive to more subtle traces resulting from differences in kinematics?

Design and Materials

In order to answer the question if and how sensitive an observer is to differences between different motor origins, the stimuli used in the experiment are drawings produced by different draftsmen (human and robot). More than in detail, three different agents produced a similar series of drawings. Two of the three agents were humans, the third agent was a robot. Ii of the three agents had a more mechanical manner of cartoon (the robot and a computer creative person) whereas the tertiary agent (a sculptor) drew, not in a mechanical, simply in a natural way. "Mode of drawing", or "style" (in particular creative style) is a difficult notion to define since it is dependent on a wide variety of parameters. In this experiment, however, the drawings mainly differ with regard to the kinematic parameters of the drawn lines, reflecting the idea that drawings are characterized past the kinetic dynamics that accept produced them. It is well known that biological and non-biological move have very different acceleration and velocity profiles [32]: the almost of import kinematic parameters resulting into unlike line dynamics (e.thou. regularity of the lines) are velocity and acceleration. Overall, the robot was drawing much faster than the humans, and mostly (except for one drawing) operated at constant velocity. When changing direction of the line, the robot halted to turn and in one case turned, continued its way again at constant velocity. Humans, in contrast, constantly accelerate and decelerate when drawing. Moreover, they exercise non necessarily halt only rather decelerate when changing direction of the line. This results in lines with a more fluid and natural, but likewise more sloppy or less regular look or mode, whereas robot lines manifest a more regular, just besides more rigid, neat and mechanical manner. The differences, still, are subtle, because the algorithms that controlled the robot were written specially in order to describe in a less auto-like way [33]. Nonetheless, this did not prevent that repeated elements within one robot drawing are identical in overall size and form.

Another important feature of the style or way of cartoon is the pressure level with which lines are drawn. Together with the kinematic parameter of velocity, fewer pressure by the robot resulted in less dense lines for the robot drawings. The human hand exercised more than pressure on the pen and was drawing slower than the robot, such that the ink of the human drawings was denser, which resulted in darker drawings. Considering the density of the line is a mode feature that not merely depends on the kinematics of the motion, we controlled for this in the pattern. To ensure that participants would non utilise systematic differences in overall darkness of the drawings every bit a cue for discriminating human and robot drawings, midtones of the robot drawings were adapted such that they matched the human drawings qua darkness. In sum, it was mainly differences in velocity and acceleration (or lack thereof) that resulted in style differences between man and robot drawings.

Drawings ranged from elementary, single lines to more complex drawings. The non-figurative, abstract drawings were not representing annihilation. A series of 20 drawings was produced past a robot (programmed past a new media creative person). Two different artists and so copied this aforementioned series by hand and each robot drawing was thus copied twice (by two different hands), resulting into 3 similar series of 20 drawings each. The sculptor was asked to copy the drawings considering of his trained hand and spatial insight, and since, more more often than not, sculptors oft are accomplished draftsmen exhibiting fluid, natural drawing styles. The computer artist was asked to re-create the drawings because his many sketchbooks from over the years exhibit a style of drawing that struck equally pen plotter-similar, in line with his long-standing practice as a computer artist. A pen plotter is a computer printer that draws lines with i or more automated pens attached to arms that move mechanically over the newspaper, and the resulting drawings openly wait mechanical. We asked the estimator artist to re-create the robot drawings because we wanted to include an intermediate case between the robot and the human drawings, or rather, between the drawings with a mechanical mode and with a natural mode. We included his drawings in the experiment in order to test if participants would hesitate about the motor origin of the drawing, i.e. hesitating between a man and a robot origin. A third artist, a new media artist, was asked to plan his drawing robot with cocky-written algorithms, which were developed during an creative research process and intended to brand robot drawings look less mechanical and more humanlike. In that way, we wanted to forbid that, overall, the robot images would show too patently their mechanical-digital origin.

At the same time, and in order to explore the role of salient versus subtle kinematic cues for discrimination between unlike motor origins, the drawings were also categorized into drawings containing salient kinematic cues and drawings only containing subtle kinematic cues. Thus, a kickoff category of drawings independent salient kinematic cues on the footing of which observers could easily visually judge whether the drawing was made past a human or a robot. These salient kinematic kinematic cues consisted of well-formed circles or fragments of circular forms of 180° or more than. Since in drawing position, the human wrist cannot rotate around its axis (i.east. maintaining a constant radius) for approximately more than 180°, the presence of circles and fragments of circles of 180° or more served equally salient kinematic kinematic cue for discriminating human versus robot drawings. We relied on the well known fact that even for the nearly talented of artists, one of the most hard things to draw is a circle. For instance, Giorgio Vasari [31], in the sixteenth century, relates that when the Pope sent a messenger to Giotto, asking him to ship a cartoon to demonstrate his skill, Giotto drew a circle (in crimson paint), and this circle was so perfect that information technology seemed as though it was drawn using a compass. Making use of the circle for discriminating between artist and motorcar or mechanical device is thus not new, and seems a robust method. This category of drawings containing salient kinematic cues for discriminating between human and robot origin is thus defined on the ground of movements that are anatomically/kinematically impossible for the a human hand, but possible for the robot, underscoring the emphasis on the involvement of the motor dimension. Since in drawing position, the human wrist cannot rotate more than 180° around its own axis, whereas the robot could rotate a 360° effectually its own axis, this resulted in well-formed circles or fragments of circles of 180° or more in the case of the robot, and more sloppy circles or fragments of circles of 180° or more in the case of the human hand. Curvilinear fragments or circular fragments smaller than 180° were copied much more adequately by the human manus and could non serve as salient kinematic cues, whereas direct lines were in both the human being and the robot drawings not directly as if drawn along a ruler. As such, they could non serve equally salient kinematic cues for discriminating man from robot drawings. The estimator artist and the sculptor were asked to copy the drawings as accurately every bit possible, implying that the salient kinematic cue of circular forms or fragments thereof would be respected and thus included. The problem of cartoon circles or large fragments of circles (i.eastward. requiring a shift of arm position) is a notorious one in drawing exercise. Both artists (and more than more often than not anyone acquainted with drawing as a practitioner or every bit a beholder) were well aware that regular circular forms that exceed the rotation possibilities of the wrist are a challenge when drawing, and also perceptually conspicuous for the onlooker, because of the salient kinematic differences between free hand drawing and mechanical drawing (e.g. using a compass, or executed by some other mechanical device such equally a robot that is able to rotate around its axis). In what follows, we therefore label the robot and the homo drawings containing circular forms or large fragments thereof every bit containing "salient kinematic cues" (encounter Fig. 1) and drawings without these elements as containing "subtle kinematic cues" (meet Fig. ii). Thus, by making a category of drawings containing a notoriously hard element for humans to draw (resulting in visually conspicuous differences between robot and man producers), we wanted to make an comeback compared to the study by Umiltà and colleagues, since now ii categories of drawings are presented, one with salient kinematic cues for discriminating between motor origins of the drawings, and one simply containing subtle kinematic cues.

The robot (developed and programmed past the new media artist) produced a series of xx drawings, and this series was and then copied past mitt by two artists, a sculptor and a figurer creative person (cf. supra). The material used (Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, soft tip, with common cold grey Indian ink, on A3 Steinbach Aurora drawing paper of 200 thou) was the same for the three agents. The algorithms for the robot were developed in the form of an artistic PhD-project (Poetic Automobile, 2006–2012 [33]). At kickoff sight, and although mechanically produced, the resulting drawings practise not openly look similar robot drawings. This was intended to be and so, in order to approach the look of homo drawings as closely as possible and thus to nowadays robot drawings that were visually as similar as possible to human being drawings.

The original drawings on A3-format were first digitalized past scanning them in high resolution (7015×9921 pixels). In order to nowadays them in the Presentation 14.nine software, the images were resized to 702×992 pixels. These were displayed on a screen with a resolution of 1680×1050 and 20 inch diagonal (99.06 ppi pixel density), resulting in images of seven.09×10.01 inch or eighteen.01×25.43 cm. Since the test room does non allow in any daylight, brightness was set a 100 cd/m2, matching the visual brightness of the original drawings in similar lighting conditions. As for the dissimilarity, since a higher contrast ratio will prove more tonal gradations, we opted for a relatively low dissimilarity ratio, around 500∶1, in view of the fact that nosotros wanted to command for differences in tonal gradation. Ambient lite was kept constant through the apply of ceiling light fittings (4×50 W). Participants sat comfortably on a chair, and viewing distance was kept abiding and comfortable across all participants at 60 cm.

Participants

12 naïve (i.due east. not educated in the domain of fine arts or art history) volunteers participated in this experiment after giving their written informed consent (viii female, mean age: 33.6) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. The study was canonical by the Departmental Ethics Committee, Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Procedure

On each trial, participants were presented with one cartoon (with salient kinematic cues for discriminating or with subtle kinematic cues only) that was produced by the robot, the calculator creative person or the sculptor, resulting in a two×3 within subjects design, and were asked to guess in an unspeeded way if the cartoon was made by a human being or by a robot. The number of drawings with salient kinematic cues was vi out of 20 for each producer (robot, computer artist, sculptor) and the number of drawings with subtle kinematic cues but was fourteen out of twenty for each producer. In total, each participant was presented with the same series of drawings: 24 drawings with salient kinematic cues and 56 drawings without subtle kinematic cues only. Since nosotros wanted to take an equal number of presentations of stimuli from robots and humans, each robot drawing was presented twice in the series, resulting in 80 drawings. The series of 80 drawings thus contained 20 times 4 very similar-looking drawings, ii past a robot (twice the same), two by a human being (by ii different draftsmen) (run into Fig. i en 2, robot drawings shown once).

Participants were presented with the eighty drawings, one by ane and in random guild across participants, presented in Presentation fourteen.9, on a Samsung SyncMaster 2043 BW screen. Participants were instructed to judge each time if the drawing was made past a human or past a robot, and to make their choice by pressing the corresponding cardinal on the keyboard. The verbal wording of the teaching was: "You will meet, one by one, a drawing on the screen. The cartoon is made past a robot, or by a human. Yous decide, on the ground of a thought or a feeling or an intuition, if the cartoon you run across is made past a robot or by a human paw by pressing the respective button. There is no need to hurry, y'all can have all the time you need before deciding." No more instructions were given and once they had pressed a fundamental, the next image appeared. Participants were not informed about the visual or functional properties of the robot and did not know that 2 different homo hands were involved or that this was a collaboration with artists. They were not informed nigh who copied whom, or what the proportion of man and robot drawings was, and they were not given any feedback on their operation during the class of the experiment.

The ready-upward of the study, the nature of the drawings, and the scarcity of information almost the agents were such that apart from a number of drawings containing the mentioned salient kinematic cues, there were no other salient cues as to the producer of the drawings.

Results

We wanted to test if an observer would be able to discriminate between the human and the robot producers (1) when there were salient kinematic cues for discriminating between the drawings and (2) when in that location were only subtle kinematic cues. We hypothesized that participants would be able to attribute the cartoon to the correct motor origin (human being or robot) when salient kinematic cues were present, only in the presence of subtle kinematic cues only, that they would become confused about the motor origin of the drawings made by the reckoner creative person (drawings with a human motor origin but a rather mechanical cartoon way).

We measured participants' accuracy, expressed as a % right charge per unit, in correctly recognizing the origin of the drawing (i.e. human being or robot). Across all participants, there was an above hazard performance, with 70% of the drawings being attributed to the correct producer (homo or robot). x out of 12 participants performed above take a chance level (binomial test, H₀: π = .5, i-α = .95, with Yates' correction for continuity). The score of the 2 participants performing at chance level was 58.75% of right answers (binomial test, H₀: π = .5, 1-α = .95, with Yates' correction for continuity, p = 0.0735).

Because nosotros were interested in the role of kinematic cues and the part of the producer of the drawing, the mean correct charge per unit per condition was submitted in a 2×3 repeated measures ANOVA with the factors of type of drawing ("salient" versus "subtle") and producer of the cartoon (robot, sculptor, and computer artist). There was a meaning primary upshot of kinematic cue (salient versus subtle) on participants' functioning (pct of right answers): F(1,11) = 17.498, p = .002. Overall operation was better when judging drawings containing salient kinematic cues ("salient") (83.3%) than when judging drawings containing only subtle cues ("subtle") (64.4%). This latter score is nonetheless still to a higher place run a risk level (64.4%, binomial test, H₀: π = .5, 1-α = .95, with Yates' correction for continuity, p = .0026).

The primary upshot of producer was not significant (F(2,22) = ii.189, p = .136), but the interaction between category of drawing ("salient kinematic cues" versus "subtle kinematic cues") and producer was significant (F(ii,22) = 4.608; p = .021). To investigate the origin of this interaction, we performed planned comparisons. We as well calculated an guess for proportion of variance explained by the dissimilar factors. More than in detail, we calculated the values for Cohen's f, based on the measurement for explained variance partial eta squared (f² = η²/ one−η² ). Since η² is non a standardized measure, we compare Cohen's f-values. The factor category of drawing (i.e. with salient kinematic cues or with subtle kinematic cues but) has f = 1.26 (η²: .614), the factor producer (robot, sculptor or estimator creative person) f = .45 (η²: .166), and for the interaction factor (type of drawing × producer) we have f = .65 (η^two: .295). These are all large event sizes.

We did non expect any significant difference between producers in the "salient kinematic cues" status, since participants could easily rely on these salient visual cues across the 3 producers. Indeed, the percentage of correct answers was high for all three producers: sculptor (M = 80.6, SD = 17.1), reckoner artist (G = 77.7, SD = 16.3) and robot (G = 87.5, SD = 15.7). Paired-samples t-tests of hateful differences showed that for drawings containing salient kinematic cues, at that place was no significant departure in ways of correct answers between the dissimilar producers, i.e. for drawings by the sculptor and the computer artist (t(eleven) = .417, p = .685, ii-tailed), for drawings past the robot and the sculptor (t(11) = .933, p = .371, ii-tailed), and for drawings by the robot and the computer artist (t(11) = i.790, p = .101, 2-tailed)).

Therefore, nosotros were further primarily interested in the "subtle kinematic cues" drawings, and farther investigated with planned comparisons between the three producers. For the "subtle kinematic cues" drawings, at that place was a significant difference in means betwixt robot drawings and drawings fabricated by the sculptor (K = 79.8, SD = 13.1) (t(xi) = −3.221, p = .008, 2-tailed), and betwixt drawings fabricated by the sculptor and past the computer creative person (t(11) = two.614, p = .024, 2-tailed), whereas there was no significant difference in means of right answer betwixt robot drawings (M = 56.7, SD = 19.3) and drawings fabricated by the computer artist (M = 64.3, SD = 22.nine) (t(eleven) = −.938, p = .368, 2-tailed) (see Fig. 3). Moreover, all iii ways are above chance (robot drawings, 56.viii%, p = .0069, computer creative person drawings, 64.3%, p = .0026, sculptor, 79.8%, p = .0026, all binomial test, H₀: π = .5, i-α = .95, with Yates' correction for continuity).

Figure three. Percentage of right attributions.

Percentage of correct attributions of drawings produced by the robot, the sculptor and the computer artist, for drawings with salient kinematic cues and with subtle kinematic cues. Error bars depict Standard Error of Means.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102318.g003

Discussion

The purpose of the study was to test if an observer is sensitive to differences in static traces of drawings that have unlike motor origins (a drawing robot, a man with a natural drawing style and a human with a less natural and more mechanical drawing fashion). We tested this past checking if participants could aspect drawings to the correct producer. We hypothesized that participants would be able to correctly attribute the drawing to a human being or a robot origin when salient kinematic cues are present, and when only subtle kinematic cues are nowadays, that the observer would still be able to recognize the hand of the sculptor as homo, but would be confused virtually the drawings fabricated by the computer creative person. Overall, this would suggest what the role of salient kinematic cues is versus the office of subtle kinematic details.

Every bit expected, drawings containing salient kinematic cues were more oft judged correctly than drawings with only subtle kinematic cues. For "salient kinematic cues" drawings, participants perform as well for the three producers and obtain high scores for all producers. The salient kinematic cues nosotros used plow out to be very reliable when it comes to distinguishing traces by a human hand from traces by a machine or a robot. A possible caption for these (equally) high scores for the 3 producers, could be that observers rely on their noesis or prototypical view of robots and humans. Well-formed circular shapes are visually conspicuous and in accordance with the prototypical view of robots every bit agents working neatly, accurately and in a mechanical way. This stands in contrast to the more natural and (geometrically) sloppier way of drawing past a human hand, which is not able to draw without aids well-formed circular shapes or large fragments thereof. Knowledge about the mechanical movement of robots could thus have informed their decisions, which was supported by visual expertise in distinguishing regular circles or large circle fragments from irregular ones.

Since nosotros were interested in cases in which the departure between robot and human drawings is visually harder to find, i.east. when only subtle kinematic cues are present, and on the basis of the significant interaction betwixt producer and type of cartoon, further assay was focused on the "subtle kinematic cues" drawings. It is primarily with regard to subtle kinematic features, caused by differences in cartoon movements, that the "subtle kinematic cues" drawings differ. It is here that the advantage of the collaboration with the new media artist who programmed the robot became apparent: in combination with the contingencies associated with drawing in the real world (irregularities in the paper or the drawing surface, physical properties of ink, pen and newspaper), the drawings made past the robot exhibited (on purpose of the programmer) hesitations and flaws, and the robot did not produce directly, neat lines that did not vary in thickness or width at all. This means that in the "subtle kinematic cues" drawings, well-formedness of the elements could no longer play a decisive function in discriminating traces by a human hand from robot traces. Differences between the motor origins of the fatigued traces could only exist detected on the basis of subtle differences in the kinematic parameters. Interestingly, participants scored very well for the sculptor drawings, simply significantly less well when judging the drawings made by the estimator creative person (run into Fig. three). Although participants nevertheless perform above gamble in correctly attributing the computer artist drawings to a human paw, there is a large driblet in percentage of correct attributions, showing that participants have more than difficulties in detecting the subtle cues for attributing the drawing to a human hand in the case of the drawings made by the estimator artist. In addition, the performance for the drawings fabricated by the sculptor was significantly better compared to the performance for the drawings made by the computer artist and the drawings fabricated by the robot. Presumably, this is because participants were able to apply the kinematic parameters of the drawings by the sculptor every bit reliable indicators for their motor origin. In brusque, they used fluidity and naturalness of the drawn lines as indications for human being move. Together, these two observations confirmed our thought that there was a significant deviation between the computer artist'southward cartoon style (cf. its resemblance to plotted lines) and the cartoon fashion of the sculptor (cf. its fluid and natural way of drawing).

A study by Cross and colleagues [34] shows that the action ascertainment network (AON) is sensitive to a broader range of action features beyond those that are simply familiar. In that study, reactions to observing videos of human/natural versus robot movements (both performed past a man as well equally by a virtual Lego robot) were compared. The report showed that the action observation network responded more robustly to robot-similar movement (for both human and Lego robot forms). This is consequent with the findings of the present report nearly the traces of homo versus robot movement in the sense that it is not the agent performing or creating that matters most, but the fashion of movement/cartoon, i.e. the kinematic details or the kinetic dynamics of the lines. Cross and colleagues challenge the thought that the action observation network is simply responsive to human being agents or but to deportment that are familiar (cf. the dominant familiarity hypothesis). Instead, there appears to be a dissociation between how well participants remember they can perform an action and activation of the activeness observation network. When participants were asked to rate their power to reproduce the dance movements, they rated the robotic movements as more difficult, and no main effect of amanuensis (human or Lego robot) was present. This suggests that sharing the same motor repertoire is crucial, but information technology also suggests that motor resonance is more complex than simply a heightened activation of the activity ascertainment network. In order to investigate if the performance past participants relies on the activation of the action observation network or on the activation of the mirror neuron system, or if it relies on the internal rehearsal of the (implied) movement observed, east.1000. based on the caste of prediction fault and thus mismatch instead of match, further studies are needed. What is important in the study by Cross and colleagues, however, is the uncoupling of amanuensis and movement, something we took into account in our design past including the drawings made past the calculator artist. Our report suggests that this uncoupling does not only happen in the case of observing live movements (as in Cross et al.), but also when observing the static traces of movement. Sensitivity for differences in kinetic dynamics would thus transfer from live movement to traces of movement.

The difference in motor dynamics between the three agents is reflected in kinematic details of the lines. Moreover, in the absence of salient kinematic cues, observers tin only rely on subtle kinematic details in gild to judge the motor origin of the drawings (robot or homo). Figure ii shows that these differences in drawing style are indeed very subtle ones, but nonetheless must be responsible for the significant divergence in percentage of right attributions. Since the kinematic features of the lines are indicators for the movements that accept produced the lines, we should look at theories and results that point into the direction of an (implicit) recognition of the movement involved.

Our results extend the main findings of the written report by Umiltà and colleagues by showing that observers are not only able to detect traces resulting from movement versus "traces" not resulting from movement, only that they are likewise sensitive to differences betwixt several motor origins. In addition, we controlled for salient cues and focused on the effect of more subtle kinematic features of the lines.

It has been proposed that our motor system is geared upwards to execute observed movements, i.e. that observing an action would excite the motor programs used to execute the action oneself [35]. A study by Kilner and colleagues [32] showed that the observation of some other human making incongruent arm movements significantly interfered with the execution of arm movements, but not when incongruent robot movements were observed. These results suggest that there is a distinction between observing human and robotic movements in terms of this interference issue. Biological (human) and non-biological (robot) movements would be two types of movements, processed past distinct neural systems. Kilner and colleagues say that many aspects of human movement could have caused interference (in the coinciding condition), including the velocity profile of the motion, the actual posture, or the presence of bodily, head, or facial features of the man. Our study, together with the results from Cross and colleagues [34], suggests that peculiarly the kinematics of motion play a role in the sensitivity for the motor origin of movement. Thus, the two types of movement (biological and robot) are primarily distinguished on the footing of the kinematics of the (traces of) movement. The representation of a human being or more than generally of the executor of the movement is not necessary in order to exist able to discriminate between different motor origins.

Since the mirror arrangement might have evolved in the context of action understanding and empathy [36] it is not unlikely that mirror neurons play a part in the better recognition of the sculptor's traces as traces of human being movement, whereas perceptual sensitivity for more mechanical traces is less authentic. Although "motor resonance" as such does not necessarily imply a better recognition of human being move versus robot, Calvo-Merino and colleagues [37] have shown that we exercise not only understand actions by visual recognition, but also motorically. Mirror circuits have a purely motor response over and above visual representations of activity. This would imply for our study that robot drawings are primarily judged on a visual basis, implying less motor response than the drawings that are fabricated by a naturally drawing human hand. The latter would not only exist recognized on the footing of a purely visual strategy, but the kinematic details would also lead to a motor understanding of the movement implied. This additional part of motor agreement in the case of human being traces could be a factor in explaining the higher scores for the drawings made by the sculptor, and the more hesitant attitude towards drawings by the computer artist (and to a bottom degree also the robot). If nosotros don't entreatment to an additional motor understanding, it would be hard to explain the possible basis for the divergence in scores between human drawings, robot drawings and the in between drawings.

A final betoken takes into account the so-called "uncanny valley" miracle. Saygin and colleagues [37] too looked at the effects of an android (biological appearance only mechanical motility) on encephalon activity, in particular in the activity perception arrangement. The expectation that an amanuensis that looks human also moves biologically, is violated here, and would be a factor in the explanation of the "uncanny valley" phenomenon. The "uncanny valley" refers to the bespeak where the positive correlation between the homo advent of a robot and the feeling of familiarity of humans toward the robot suddenly breaks downwardly when the robot'southward advent becomes very homo-like, leading to a feeling of uncanniness [39]. Saygin and colleagues [38] observed similar suppression effects for the human and the robot, and stronger for the android, particularly in a key node of the activeness perception network (anterior intraparietal sulcus). Information technology is very hard to test if something similar to the uncanny valley miracle is likewise possible in the instance of static traces, because the required mismatch between appearance of the agent and movement is not realizable. What is present, even so, in our report, is an attempt to "humanize" the robot lines on the basis of algorithms that result in less rigid robot movements, and a reverse attempt to "roboticize" the lines of 1 human amanuensis by request someone with a more than plotter-similar drawing fashion to produce a serial of stimuli (without however instructing the artist to draw like a robot). Therefore, in both cases, an effect of uncanniness might be involved, since the robot drawings are not robot-like at first sight, and the computer creative person drawings might not be straightforwardly human at offset sight. This may exist an culling style of explaining why observers in the "subtle kinematic cues" condition generally perform well for the unambiguously human drawings past the sculptor but get confused by the robot and computer artist drawings. As both Ernst Jentsch and Sigmund Freud observed, ambiguity and incertitude if something is living or dead, or moving because it is alive or mechanically is i of the key features of the uncanny [40]–[41]. As Freud remarks: "Jentsch has taken every bit a very good example 'doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether lifeless objects might non be in fact breathing'; and he refers in this connection to the impression fabricated by waxwork figures, ingeniously synthetic dolls and automata. To these he adds the uncanny effect of epileptic fits, and of manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the spectator the impression of automated mechanical processes at work behind the ordinary appearance of mental activeness." [41] (p. 226) It is non sure that the "uncanny valley"-explanation and motor understanding as addition to visual understanding are mutually exclusive in explaining the observed differences in scores, since both focus on motility equally an essential element in our recognition of movement (or traces of motion) or lack thereof.

Conclusions

Starting from the thought of "motor resonance", i.e. the idea that in the perception of static traces of human being motion, a simulation takes identify of the dynamic processes that gave ascent to information technology, we focused on the role of the kinetic dynamics or the kinematic features of lines in drawings, and on the observer's sensitivity to differences in motor origin. In line with the finding that information technology is not the nature of the amanuensis as such or the mere visual appearance of its product, just its motor embodiment that matters, nosotros found that observers react differently to visually like drawings produced by agents with a different drawing style. Our findings show that sensitivity for differences in kinetic dynamics transfer from alive movement to static traces of movement and enable an observer to discriminate between different motor origins of static traces. Observers are thus not only capable to discriminate betwixt traces resulting from move and lines not resulting from movement [29]–[xxx], just they are also sensitive to differences between motor origins. Even if kinematic differences in drawing manner are very subtle, they must be responsible for the significant difference in percentage of correct detection of the motor origin. Possible explanations for the amend recognition of unambiguous human drawings versus more ambiguous human and/or robot drawings indicate to the additional role of motor understanding over and in a higher place a purely visual agreement, whereas the less good scores for the ambiguous drawings could indicate to a possible confusion similar to the "uncanny valley" phenomenon.

The present study also shows a number of limitations that could exist addressed in further studies. This report investigated the sensitivity to differences in the motor origin of drawings (robot or human being) in the case where the human draughtsman is not free but constrained to the original drawing by the robot. This immune us as much control over the independent variables as possible. We do not suspect that the kinematic qualities of the artists' drawings gestures were affected by the mechanic gestures of the robot, since the artists were not instructed to depict similar robots or to reproduce the robot movements (which moreover they did not witness), but they were asked to replicate the elements of the cartoon in in that location own drawing way. Even so, it would be interesting to meet what happens if nosotros change the direction of copying and have a set of man drawings redrawn by a robot, and have humans copy again such drawings. To what caste would this affect the observer's sensitivity to differences in motor origins of the drawings?

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Lara Maister for her assistance with the programming, and the 3 artists, Dr. Ludwig Vandevelde, Dr. Peter Beyls, Dr. Jerry Galle, for their help in preparing the stimuli for the experiment.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HDP MT. Performed the experiments: HPD MT. Analyzed the data: HDP MT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HDP MT. Wrote the paper: HDP MT.

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Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102318

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