Human Machine Interaction and Communication in Cooperative Actions - Bioinspired Approaches for Human-Centric Technologies - page 237

Chapter 8
Human Machine Interaction
and Communication in Cooperative Actions

Gabriel Baud-Bovy, Pietro Morasso, Francesco Nori, Giulio Sandini,
and Alessandra Sciutti

8.1 Introduction

Many human activities are performed in groups and require that the individuals in
the group coordinate their actions. Joint or cooperative actions can be regarded as
any form of social interaction whereby two or more individuals coordinate their
activities in space and time to bring about a commonly desired change in the
environment (Sebanz et al. 2006 ). The number and variety of circumstances
involving joint actions are countless and might or might not involve physical
interaction. For example, carrying bulky objects, dancing, handshaking, and teach-
ing a physical skill are examples of joint actions involving physical interaction. In
contrast, workers controlling remotely different parts of a machine, a clinical team
performing a surgical operation, musicians playing together in an orchestra, ballet
dancers realizing a choreography, and groups of programmers developing software
are examples of tasks where all partners need to coordinate their actions to perform
the main task in absence of physical interaction. In this Chapter, we will consider
joint actions that may or may not involve physical interaction between partners
(whether human or robot).
A crucial aspect of joint action is that it requires that the partners share infor-
mation and communicate to update the information as needed. Without shared
information and communication, no form of coordination would be possible. In
particular, joint action typically requires knowing or guessing what the other
perceives (or does not perceive), and what the other will or should do. It also
requires a constant monitoring of one's own action and the state of the interaction,
which is far from trivial because the effect of one's action might depend on the
action of the two partners. Sebanz et al. ( 2006 ) highlight that successful joint
actions rest on the abilities to (1) share representations, (2) predict action, and
(3) integrate predicted effects of own's and other's action.

G. Baud-Bovy ￿ P. Morasso ￿ F. Nori ￿ G. Sandini ( * ) ￿ A. Sciutti
Central Research Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy