This paper presents a cross-cultural study on peoples’ negative attitude toward robots. 467 participants from seven different countries filled in the negative attitude towards robots scale survey which consists of 14 questions in three clusters: attitude towards the interaction with robots, attitude towards social influence of robots and attitude towards emotions in interaction with robots. Around one half of them were recruited at local universities and the other half was approached through Aibo online communities. The participants’ cultural background had a (...) significant influence on their attitude and the Japanese were not as positive as stereotypically assumed. The US participants had the most positive attitude, while participants from Mexico had the most negative attitude. The participants from the online community were more positive towards robots than those not involved. Previous experience in interacting with Aibo also had a positive effect, but owning an Aibo did not improve their attitude. (shrink)

The individual physical appearances of robots are considered significant, similar to the way that those of humans are. We investigated whether users prefer robots with male or female physical appearances for use in daily communication situations and whether egalitarian gender role attitudes are related to this preference. One thousand adult men and women aged 20–60 participated in the questionnaire survey. The results of our study showed that in most situations and for most subjects, “males” was not selected and “females” or (...) “neither” was selected. Moreover, the number of respondents who chose “either” was higher than that who chose “female.” Furthermore, we examined the relationship between gender and gender preference and confirmed that the effect of gender on the gender preference for a robot weakened when the human factor was eliminated. In addition, in some situations for android-type robots and in all situations for machine-type robots, equality orientation in gender role attitudes was shown to be higher for people who were not specific about their gender preferences. It is concluded that there is no need to introduce a robot that specifies its gender. Robots with a gender-neutral appearance might be more appropriate for applications requiring complex human–robot interaction and help avoid reproducing a gender bias. (shrink)

To investigate whether people with social anxiety have less actual and “anticipatory” anxiety when interacting with a robot compared to interacting with a person, we conducted a 2 × 2 psychological experiment with two factors: social anxiety and interaction partner. The experiment was conducted in a counseling setting where a participant played the role of a client and the robot or the confederate played the role of a counselor. First, we measured the participants’ social anxiety using the Social Avoidance and (...) Distress Scale, after which, we measured their anxiety at two specific moments: “anticipatory anxiety” was measured after they knew that they would be interacting with a robot or a human confederate, and actual anxiety was measured after they actually interacted with the robot or confederate. Measurements were performed using the Profile of Mood States and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results indicated that participants with higher social anxiety tended to feel less “anticipatory anxiety” and tension when they knew that they would be interacting with robots compared with humans. Moreover, we found that interaction with a robot elicited less tension compared with interaction with a person regardless of the level of social anxiety. (shrink)

Negative attitudes toward robots are considered as one of the psychological factors preventing humans from interacting with robots in the daily life. To verify their influence on humans‘ behaviors toward robots, we designed and executed experiments where subjects interacted with Robovie, which is being developed as a platform for research on the possibility of communication robots. This paper reports and discusses the results of these experiments on correlation between subjects’ negative attitudes and their behaviors toward robots. Moreover, it discusses influences (...) of gender and experience of real robots on their negative attitudes and behaviors toward robots. (shrink)

A great deal of research has been performed recently on robots that feature functions for communicating with humans in daily life, i.e., communication robots. We consider it important to develop methods to measure humans’ attitudes and emotions that may prevent them from interaction with communication robots, as indices to study short-term and long-term interaction between humans and communication robots. This study is aimed at exploring the influence of negative attitudes toward robots, focusing on applications of communication robots to daily-life services. (...) First, a scale of negative attitudes toward robots consisting of three subordinate scales, “negative attitudes toward situations of interaction with robots,” “negative attitudes toward the social influence of robots,” and “negative attitudes toward emotions in interaction with robots,” was developed based on a data sample comprising of 263 Japanese university students. This scale was administered to 240 Japanese university students to confirm its validity and reliability. In this paper, we report on the results of analyses of these data samples. Moreover, we discuss some future problems including a comparison of attitudes toward robots between nations. (shrink)

In the present study, qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted to explore differences between stakeholders in expectations of gendered robots, with a focus on their specific application in the field of psychotherapy. In Study I, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 experts in psychotherapy to extract categories of opinions regarding the use of humanoid robots in the field. Based on these extracted categories, in Study II, an online questionnaire survey was conducted to compare concrete expectations of the use of humanoid (...) robots in psychotherapy between 50 experts and 100 nonexperts in psychotherapy. The results revealed that compared with the female participants, the male participants tended to prefer robots with a female appearance. In addition, compared with the experts, the nonexperts tended not to relate the performance of robots with their gender appearance, and compared with the other participant groups, the female expert participants had lower expectations of the use of robots in the field. These findings suggest that differences between stakeholders regarding the expectations of gendered robots should be resolved to encourage their acceptance in a specific field. (shrink)

In order to investigate the influence of participants’ age on their image of robots in Japan, a pilot research was completed by 371 visitors at a robot exhibition held at a commercial facility in Japan, based on the questionnaire consisting of four open-ended questions. The comparison of younger, adult, and elderly groups, found that: in the younger age group, images of robots are ambiguous about near future assumptions, preferences, and antipathy, the adult group assumes that communication robots will appear in (...) the near future, but actually expects robots to function in non-communication tasks such as household duties and dangerous tasks, and experiences great anxiety and fear about social relationships between robots and humans, the elderly group assumes that both communication and non-communication robots will appear in the near future, but actually expects robots to function in communication tasks such as service in public settings and providing care at home or in welfare facilities, and is very concerned about the physical and ecological damage that robots may cause. Although the pilot study had a problem of sample bias on participant selection and distributions of gender and age, it can lead to some predictions on social acceptance of robots in Japan. Keywords: Robots, images, age differences, social research. (shrink)

This article proposes an alternative approach in sustainability assessment. The conceptual framework was developed by modifying Ken Wilber's All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) approach, and focuses on the inter-relatedness/inter-connection of various perspectives inherent to the concept of sustainability. To look at how our framework can facilitate the practice of sustainability assessment, we apply the framework to examine the relationships between social systems and the environmental changes in the Ili River basin across the period 1900?2008. This approach enables us to investigate (...) the environmental problems of the Ili River basin in a four-quadrant framework, and combine the empirics of quadrants obtained from traditional disciplinary methodologies. The four-quadrant framework adopted in this study illustrates the interlocking relationships among various perspectives of environmental issues in the Ili River basin, namely, physical perspective, personal perspective, cultural perspective, and social perspective. In particular, the protruding development (evolution) of the lower right dimension is the fundamental cause of the environmental degradation and its related social problems in the Ili River basin. Compared to other established approaches in literature that emphasize on the tradeoffs of various perspectives of sustainability, our findings indicate the potential contributions of four-quadrant framework to sustainability assessment through its focus on the inter-relatedness/inter-connection of different perspectives. (shrink)

Humanity is facing a crisis of survival. In order to save humanity and nature, we must rebuild their foundations. This paper proposes integral studies and integral practices as a possible new paradigm for the 21st century. First, we investigated the necessity of integral studies and integral practices, which were suggested by the following three evidences: limitations of the Spiritual Revolution and modern philosophy, limitations of the Scientific Revolution and modern science, and contemporary practical problems that threaten the future of humanity (...) and nature. Second, we investigated the purpose and the principle of integral studies and integral practices from a viewpoint of the nature of both human beings and universe. One of the fundamental questions for humanity is how to overcome the egoism of individuals as well as the entire human race. In this avenue, we think the first step is to transcend toraware, which is a Japanese word meaning both “states of being caught” and “what catches us”. The state of being caught manifests itself when the ego emerges while we begin to distinguish between the self and others. Therefore, integrity and intrinsic nature become principles of integral studies and integral practices. Consequently, integral studies and integral practices serve for the sake of nature including humanity. Third, we discussed the methodology of integral studies and integral practices. We argue its core is integral exploration and reframing of the self and others, ourselves and the world, and humanity and nature. It consequently reveals integrity and harmonizes intellect, emotion, and volition as well as goodness, truth, and beauty while revealing integrity and opening up or unfolding the intrinsic nature of the individual and the collective. Finally, we addressed limitations and future agendas of integral studies and integral practices. We suggest it is essential to raise and discuss fundamental questions on humanity and nature as well as to elucidate the truly unknown, which cannot be understood within existing frameworks. However, whether it is correct or not will come to be verified over time. No one in the history of humanity has ever attained universal truth, which is absolutely true in light of absolute criteria that are not relativized by differences in space, time, or people, or which is absolutely true even without referring to any criteria. Therefore, it is necessary for each of us to discern what is right and maintain a critical gaze. (shrink)

The plasmodium of _Physarum polycephalum_ is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba with computational abilities. The plasmodium has been widely used as a model organism in the field of bio-computing; however, its ability to perform computation related to its biological nature itself in the essential sense has not yet been fully realized. Therefore, in this study, we focused on the phenomenon in which a plasmodium trapped in a closed space surrounded by repellent substances escapes from the field by changing its (...) own behavior rules. We demonstrated that this phenomenon is bio-computationally important in that it may enable the implementation of biological characteristics in computing. (shrink)

van Bentham et al. (Merging frameworks for interaction: DEL and ETL, 2007) provides a framework for generating the models of Epistemic Temporal Logic ( ETL : Fagin et al., Reasoning about knowledge, 1995; Parikh and Ramanujam, Journal of Logic, Language, and Information, 2003) from the models of Dynamic Epistemic Logic ( DEL : Baltag et al., in: Gilboa (ed.) Tark 1998, 1998; Gerbrandy, Bisimulations on Planet Kripke, 1999). We consider the logic TDEL on the merged semantic framework, and its extension (...) with the labeled past-operator “ P ϵ ” (“The event ϵ has happened before which. . .”). To axiomatize the extension, we introduce a method for transforming a given model into a normal form in a suitable sense. These logics suggest further applications of DEL in the theory of agency, the theory of learning, etc. (shrink)

30th Nov. and 1st Dec. 2013 at Kyoto University. Organizer: Takeshi Sakon.

The best seller and perennial classic by one of the great Zen Buddhist masters--now available in Spanish. En los más de cuarenta años que han transcurrido desde su publicación original, Mente Zen, mente de principiante se ha convertido en uno de los grandes clásicos de la espiritualidad moderna, muy querido, continuamente releído y profusamente recomendado como el mejor libro que se puede leer sobre el Zen. Suzuki Roshi presenta las bases —desde los detalles de la postura y la respiración (...) en zazen hasta la percepción de la no dualidad— de un modo que, además de ser notablemente claro, resuena con la alegría de la comprensión desde la primera hasta la última página. (shrink)

Background:Information sharing is one of the most important means of public health nurses collaborating with other healthcare professionals and community members. There are complicated ethical issues in the process.Research objectives:To describe the ethical dilemmas associated with client information sharing that Japanese public health nurses experience in daily practice and to clarify their decision-making process to resolve these dilemmas.Research design:Data were collected using a three-phase consensus method consisting of semi-structured interviews, self-administered questionnaires and a group interview.Participants and research context:We surveyed administrative (...) public health nurses in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with 12 administrative public health nurses, and the self-administered questionnaires were sent to all 899 administrative public health nurses. The group interview was carried out with eight administrative public health nurses.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval was granted by the ethics committee of the School of Health Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan (8-158, 9-130).Findings:Information-sharing ethical dilemmas occurred most often when clients’ decisions did not coincide with the nurses’ own professional assessments, particularly when they faced clinical issues that were inherently ambiguous. In their decision-making processes, nurses prioritised ‘protection of health and life’.Discussion:These findings suggest that, above all, they sought to address urgent risks to clients’ lives while upholding the principle of client autonomy as much as possible. In such cases, the nurses made decisions regarding whether to share information about the client depending on the individual situation.Conclusion:Public health nurses should protect the client’s health while taking into consideration their relationship with the client. (shrink)

Le chien, dit-on, est le meilleur ami de l’homme. En est-il de même de la femme? Que fait le chien dans la construction sociale du genre? Le livre d’Aaron Skabelund aborde cette question à travers une étude des rôles joués par le chien symbolique et les chiens réels dans le Japon contemporain depuis l’ère Meiji, notamment dans le contexte impérial. S’il ne traite pas de la question du genre de façon systématique, le problème de l’identité nationale, intimement lié à celui (...) de la masculinité,... (shrink)

Autrefois déconsidéré, le chat a aujourd’hui le statut privilégié d’animal de compagnie, au terme d’un long processus de valorisation amorcé au xviiie siècle. Cet article montre comment le premier livre consacré à cette espèce, Les Chats (1727) de François-Auguste de Paradis de Moncrif, contribua à ce changement. Là où le chat passait pour un sujet féminin et frivole, « l’historiogriffe » en fit un objet d’histoire, combinant deux modèles de masculinité, érudite et galante, dissociés par la Querelle des Anciens et (...) des Modernes. L’érudition lui permit de critiquer la phobie des chats en renvoyant aux mœurs des Orientaux, mais aussi de citer maints amateurs et amatrices de la haute société française. Moncrif réunit ainsi une communauté émotionnelle livresque constituée de félinophiles estimables, hommes et femmes, pour démontrer qu’il est parfaitement juste et raisonnable de chérir un chat. (shrink)

A system for analyzing concerns of people from Weblog articles is proposed. The system called KANSHIN analyzes concerns of people by collecting Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Weblog articles. Users can find concerns of people in each language. Users can also compare differences of concerns between Japanese, Chinese, and Korean language communities. We describe several analysis results: (1) patterns of social concerns, (2) change of focuses on a problem along with the time, (3) differences of concerns on a problem between Japanese, (...) Chinese, and Korean Weblog sites, and (4) relation between words in Weblog articles and real world natural phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper concerns Davis’s objections against the probative uses of imaginary cases. His policy of getting more cautious in their uses is commendable. However, Davis’s arguments and proposals for limiting their uses might be based on controversial assumptions, go too far, and undervalue the reasons why thought experiments in ethics are constructed as they are. Even merely metaphysically possible cases can be test cases for or against ethical principles. Our ethical judgments about unrealistic cases can be credible, because, depending on (...) the cases, we can know what would happen even under unrealistic assumptions. And non-actual and imagined cases are often indispensable for several purposes: examining the ethical relevance of natural properties, testing ethical principles, choosing between rival theories, and inductive uses (including generalization from a merely possible case to an actual problem at hand). It is hard to do away with the cases that are physically, biologically, and/or historically unrealistic. (shrink)

This paper surveys the interface between the two major logical trends that describe agents’ intelligent interaction over time: dynamic epistemic logic (DEL) and epistemic temporal logic (ETL). The initial attempt to “merge” DEL and ETL was made in van Benthem et al. (Merging frameworks for interaction: DEL and ETL, 2007) and followed up by van Benthem et al. (J Phil Logic 38(5):491–526, 2009) and Hoshi (Epistemic dynamics and protocol information. Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University Stanford, 2009a). The merged framework provides a (...) systematic comparison between these two logical systems and studies new logics of intelligent interaction. This paper presents the main results and the recent developments at the interface between DEL and ETL. (shrink)

Zen Buddhism as it has been discovered by the West in our time emerges as one of the great challenges to Western philosophy, psychology, and religion. The present volume, composed of the work of D. T. Suzuki, Zen's chief exponent in English, and presented to Western readers by William Barrett, is intended to introduce the general reader to the history and spirit of Zen.

We first show that the projection image of a discrete definable set is again discrete for an arbitrary definably complete locally o‐minimal structure. This fact together with the results in a previous paper implies a tame dimension theory and a decomposition theorem into good‐shaped definable subsets called quasi‐special submanifolds. Using this fact, we investigate definably complete locally o‐minimal expansions of ordered groups when the restriction of multiplication to an arbitrary bounded open box is definable. Similarly to o‐minimal expansions of ordered (...) fields, Łojasiewicz's inequality, Tietze's extension theorem and affiness of pseudo‐definable spaces hold true for such structures under the extra assumption that the domains of definition and the pseudo‐definable spaces are definably compact. Here, a pseudo‐definable space is a topological space having finite definable atlases. We also demonstrate Michael's selection theorem for definable set‐valued functions with definably compact domains of definition. (shrink)

Homology is a fundamental concept in biology. However, the metaphysical status of homology, especially whether a homolog is a part of an individual or a member of a natural kind, is still a matter of intense debate. The proponents of the individuality view of homology criticize the natural kind view of homology by pointing out that homologs are subject to evolutionary transformation, and natural kinds do not change in the evolutionary process. Conversely, some proponents of the natural kind view of (...) homology argue that a homolog can be construed both as a part of an individual and a member of a natural kind. They adopt the Homeostatic Property Cluster theory of natural kinds, and the theory seems to strongly support their construal. Note that this construal implies the acceptance of essentialism. However, looking back on the history of the concept of homology, we should not overlook the fact that the individuality view was proposed to reject the essentialist interpretation of homology. Moreover, the essentialist notions of natural kinds can, in our view, mislead biologists about the phenomena of homology. Consequently, we need a non-essentialist view of homology, which we name the “persistently reproducible module” view. This view highlights both the individual-like and kind-like aspects of homologs while stripping down both essentialist and anti-essentialist interpretations of homology. In this article, we articulate the PRM view of homology and explain why it is recommended over the other two views. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 3 Seiten: 395-418.

A recurring issue in any formal model representing agents' (changing) informational attitudes is how to account for the fact that the agents are limited in their access to the available inference steps, possible observations and available messages. This may be because the agents are not logically omniscient and so do not have unlimited reasoning ability. But it can also be because the agents are following a predefined protocol that explicitly limits statements available for observation and/or communication. Within the broad literature (...) on epistemic logic, there are a variety of accounts that make precise a notion of an agent's "limited access" (for example, Awareness Logics, Justification Logics, and Inference Logics). This paper interprets the agents' access set of formulas as a constraint on the agents' information gathering process limiting which formulas can be observed. (shrink)

The indispensability argument, which claims that science requires beliefs in mathematical entities, gives a strong motivation for mathematical realism. However, mathematical realism bears Benacerrafian ontological and epistemological problems. Although recent accounts of mathematical realism have attempted to cope with these problems, it seems that, at least, a satisfactory account of epistemology of mathematics has not been presented. For instance, Maddy's realism with perceivable sets and Resnik's and Shapiro's structuralism have their own epistemological problems. This fact has been a reason to (...) rebut the indispensability argument and adopt mathematical nominalism. Since mathematical nominalism purports to be committed only to concretia, it seems that mathematical nominalism is epistemically friendlier than mathematical realism. However, when it comes to modal mathematical nominalism, this claim is not trivial. There is a reason for doubting the modal primitives that it invokes. In this thesis, this doubt is investigated through Chihara's Constructibility Theory. Chihara's Constructibility Theory purports not to be committed to abstracta by replacing existential assertions of the standard mathematics with ones of constructibility. However, the epistemological status of the primitives in Chihara's system can be doubted. Chihara might try to argue that the problem would dissolve by using possible world semantics as a didactic device to capture the primitive notions. Nonetheless, his analysis of possible world semantic is not plausible, when considered as a part of the project of nominalizing mathematics in terms of the Constructibility Theory. (shrink)

This paper offers an alternative historical account of debate in Japan during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa eras. Most previous studies on the modern history of debate in Japan have focused on Yukichi Fukuzawa or political advocacy by voluntary associations in the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement. Contrary to the prevailing view that debate had largely dissipated by 1890 due to the government’s strict regulations and crackdowns, this paper demonstrates that debate continued to be an important activity of youth (...) clubs across the nation. Emerging around the late 1880s, those youth clubs regularly held intra-group debates on various topics in order to advance knowledge in academic and practical matters. This paper concludes by suggesting that far from suppressing debates altogether, political authorities tolerated, and even promoted, certain forms of debate which they deemed fit for producing active yet subservient citizens. (shrink)

Climate change apparently calls for urgent action, but both individuals and governments have been slow to react. This is partly because, in addition to natural science, economics and moral philosop...

A decision maker (DM) selects a project from a set of alternatives with uncertain productivity. After the choice, she observes a signal about productivity and decides how much effort to put in. This paper analyzes the optimal decision problem of the DM who rationally filters information to deal with her post-decision cognitive dissonance. It is shown that the optimal effort level for a project can be affected by unchosen projects in her choice set, and the nature of the choice set-dependence (...) is determined by the signal structure. Some comparative statics of choice set-dependence is also provided. Finally, based on the results, the optimal choice set design is also explored. This paper offers a simple framework to explain the experimental finding in psychology that people’s effort level for a project can be enhanced when the project is chosen by themselves rather than by others. (shrink)