Human-robotics interface for the interaction with cognitive and emotional human domains

For a human-robot interface it is important to have a good model of how the human subject operates. However, since such a model is difficult to obtain, then the robotics interface must observe accurately the subject´s behaviour when interacting with him. We present here a new human-robot interface for active interaction with the cognitive and emotional human domains. Since eye movements convey a lot of information about one subject´s cognitive and emotive status, we have designed a new human-robot interface which uses a video-based Eye-Tracker (ET) to observe the subject´s line of gaze. Since we are also interested in using our interface for studying and treating depression, our interface can send stimulating inputs to the subject using both a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (TMS) and a visual stimulus. The latter elicits the subject´s emotions and consists of a set of pictures of facial expressions, which have been shown according to a novel visualization protocol, called Memory-Guided Filtering (MGF). Its effectiveness has been verified by means of many experimental results. We also present the application of our human-robot interface for preliminary studies concerning new cognitive rehabilitation strategies in depression.