[caption id="attachment_79256" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Study at University of Lincoln aims to understand how long-term relationships may be forged between humans and androids
[/caption]Robot ERWIN shows emotions!

ERWIN, short for Emotional Robot with Intelligent Network, is the invention of Dr John Murray of the School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom and is now also being used in a study carried by Mriganka Biswas, a PhD university student there.

ERWIN has the ability to express basic emotions when he interacts with humans. When a face is detected by him, he is happy. When no face is detected, he is sad. He also expresses surprise and anger.

Mriganka Biswas said: “Robots are increasingly being used in different fields, such as rescuing people from debris, in medical surgeries, elderly support and as an aid for people who have autism.

“For the latter two especially, robots need to be friendly and relatively more sympathetic and emotive to its users. A companion robot needs to be friendly and have the ability to recognise users’ emotions and needs, and to act accordingly. So, for each category the robot needs to form a ‘long-term’ relationship with its users, which is possible by continuous interactions and the robot having its own personality and characteristics.”

“Cognitive biases make humans what they are, fashioning characteristics and personality, complete with errors and imperfections," Biswas said. 'Therefore, introducing cognitive biases in a robot's characteristics makes the robot imperfect by nature, but also more human-like.

“Based on human interactions and relationships, we will introduce 'characteristics' and 'personalities' to the robot. If we can explain how human-to-human long-term relationships begin and develop, then it would be easier to plan the human-robot relationship.”

ERWIN is teamed up with KEEP ON, a humanistic robot, to help scientists understand how long-term relationships can realistically be developed between humans and androids. An important goal of this research is to hopefully understand how relationships are formed by children with autism, an attachment disorder, or Asperger's syndrome. Additionally, results are important for cases where a robot operates as a personal aid or companion for the elderly or disabled.

KEEP ON is humanoid in appearance and is friendly and can interact with children but does not show emotions. By comparing how people react to the two robots, the researchers hope to discover which type is more likely to create a long-term relationship when engaging with humans.

On The Web:

Introducing ERWIN, the robot with feelings
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/introducing-erwin-the-robot-with-feelings-9113082.html

ERWIN Is An Emotional Robot With Intelligent Network Developed By University of Lincoln
http://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/erwin-is-an-emotional-robot-with-intelligent-network-developed-by-university-of-lincoln.73201/

'Emotional' robot ERWIN teams up with friendly android Keepon in Lincoln university study
http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Emotional-robot-ERWIN-teams-friendly-android/story-20590501-detail/story.html