research-article

Open access

Destruction, Catharsis, and Emotional Release in Human-Robot Interaction

Authors:

Amit ZoranAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), Volume 9, Issue 4

Article No.: 22, Pages 1 - 19

https://doi.org/10.1145/3385007

Published: 18 June 2020 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

The intersection between social, technical, and economic factors biases new product development to focus on utilitarian value. However, objects that serve alternative goals, behaviors and emotions have accompanied humankind for millennia. This article speculates about robotic objects for one non-utilitarian behavior and its implications: destruction. Robots and objects for destruction have a shared history of embodiment and heavily rely on their embodiment for interaction. Yet the topic of destruction is not very common in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Thus, we (1) present a survey of ethnographic investigations that show modes of HRI related to destruction, and (2) develop speculative concepts of interaction that demonstrate these ideas in HRI. By exemplifying a broad range of speculative uses of destruction in HRI and grounding it in literature, we hope this theoretical and conceptual article will bring a fresh perspective on alternative interactions with robots.

References

[1]

Claude Alphonso Alvares. 1980. Homo faber. M. Nijhoff Publishers.

[2]

Hannah Arendt. 2013. The human condition. University of Chicago Press.

[3]

Natalie Armitage. 2015. European and African figural ritual magic: The beginnings of the voodoo doll myth. The Materiality of Magic: An Artifactual Investigation into Ritual Practices and Popular Beliefs, 85.

[4]

Jenny Arthern and Anna Madill. 2002. How do transitional objects work? The client's view. Psychotherapy Research 12, 3 (2002), 369--388.

[5]

Christoph Bartneck, Michel Van Der Hoek, Omar Mubin, and Abdullah Al Mahmud. 2007a. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do!: Switching off a robot. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on HRI. ACM, 217--222.

Digital Library

[6]

Christoph Bartneck, Marcel Verbunt, Omar Mubin, and Abdullah Al Mahmud. 2007b. To kill a mockingbird robot. In Proceedings of the 2007 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). IEEE, 81--87.

Digital Library

[7]

Franz Boas. 1955. Primitive art. Vol. 8. Courier Corporation.

[8]

Dietrich Boschung and Jan N. Bremmer, eds. 2015. The Materiality of Magic. Wilhelm Fink.

[9]

Josef Breuer, Sigmund Freud, and James Strachey. 1955. Studies on hysteria. Basic Books.

[10]

Barry Bryant. 2003. The wheel of time sand mandala: Visual scripture of Tibetan Buddhism. Shambhala.

[11]

Brad J. Bushman. 2002. Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, 6 (2002), 724--731.

[12]

Brad J. Bushman, Roy F. Baumeister, and Collen M. Phillips. 2001. Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, 1 (2001), 17.

[13]

John M. Carroll. 1995. Scenario-based design: Envisioning work and technology in system development.

[14]

Yulia Chentsova-Dutton, Nicole Senft, N. and Andrew G. Ryder. 2013. Listening to negative emotions: How culture constrains what we hear. The Positive Side of Negative Emotions 146--178.

[15]

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Halton. 1981. The meaning of things: Domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge University Press.

[16]

Tim Dant. 1999. Material culture in the social world. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

[17]

Alan Dix. 2009. Human-computer interaction. In Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, 1327--1331.

[18]

Kelly Elizabeth Dobson. 2007. Machine therapy. Diss. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[19]

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. 2013. Speculative everything: Design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT Press.

[20]

David Eickhoff, Stefanie Mueller, and Patrick Baudisch. 2016. Destructive games: Creating value by destroying valuable physical objects. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 3970--3974.

Digital Library

[21]

Ritva Erkolahti and Marjaana Nyström. 2009. The prevalence of transitional object use in adolescence: Is there a connection between the existence of a transitional object and depressive symptoms? European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 18, 7 (2009), 400--406.

[22]

Marco Evaristti. 2000. Helena. Kolding, Trapholt Art Museum.

[23]

Christopher A. Faraone. 1991. Binding and burying the forces of evil: The defensive use of "voodoo dolls" in Ancient Greece. Classical Antiquity 10, 2 (1991), 165--220.

[24]

Renata Gaddini. 1970. Transitional objects and the process of individuation: A study in three different social groups. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 9, 2 (1970), 347--365.

[25]

Neil Gershenfeld. 2008. Fab: The coming revolution on your desktop--from personal computers to personal fabrication. Basic Books.

Digital Library

[26]

Lee Gilmore. 2010. Theater in a crowded fire: Ritual and spirituality at Burning Man. Vol. 1. University of California Press.

[27]

Daniel Goddemeyer. 2006. Smoke Doll. Retrieved on September 27, 2019 from http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com/2006/07/daniel-goddemeyers-smoke-doll-how-do.html.

[28]

Peter Goldie. 2000. Explaining expressions of emotion. Mind 109, 433 (2000), 25--38.

[29]

Chris Gosden and Yvonne Marshall. The cultural biography of objects. World Archaeology 31, 2 (1999), 169--178

[30]

Edward L. Grubb and Harrison L. Grathwohl. 1967. Consumer self-concept, symbolism and market behavior: A theoretical approach. The Journal of Marketing (1967), 22--27.

[31]

David Harvey. 2011. The enigma of capital: And the crises of capitalism. Profile Books.

[32]

Hatchimals. Retrieved from http://www.hatchimals.com/.

[33]

Guy Hoffman, Oren Zuckerman, Gilad Hirschberger, Michal Luria, and Tal Shani-Sherman. 2015. Design and evaluation of a peripheral robotic conversation companion. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on HRI. ACM, 3--10.

Digital Library

[34]

Robert H. Hornberger. 1959. The differential reduction of aggressive responses as a function of interpolated activities. In American Psychologist, 14.

[35]

William Ickes, W. 1993. Empathic accuracy. Journal of Personality 61, 4 (1993), 587--610.

[36]

Tasuku Igarashi, Tadahiro Motoyoshi, Jiro Takai, and Toshikazu Yoshida. 2008. No mobile, no life: Self-perception and text-message dependency among Japanese high school students. Computers in Human Behavior 24, 5 (2008), 2311--2324.

Digital Library

[37]

Miwa Ikemiya and Daniela K. Rosner. 2014. Broken probes: Toward the design of worn media. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 18, 3 (2014), 671--683.

Digital Library

[38]

Tim Ingold. 2013. Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.

[39]

John M. Janzen and Wyatt MacGaffey. 1974. An Anthology of Kongo Religion. Lawrence: University of Kansas (1974).

[40]

Malte F. Jung, Nikolas Martelaro, and Pamela J. Hinds. 2015. Using robots to moderate team conflict: The case of repairing violations. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. ACM, 229--236.

[41]

Ann Kearney‐Cooke and Ruth H. Striegel‐Moore. 1994. Treatment of childhood sexual abuse in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: A feminist psychodynamic approach. International Journal of Eating Disorders 15, 4 (1994), 305--319.

[42]

Robert Klass and Dennis Goss. 1997. Tibetan Buddhism and the resolution of grief: The Bardo-Thodol for the dying and the grieving. Death Studies 21, 4 (1997), 377--395.

[43]

Bernadett Koles and Peter Nagy. 2016. Avatars as transitional objects: The impact of avatars and digital objects on adolescent gamers. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds 8, 3 (2016), 279--296.

[44]

Aafke Komter. 2001. Heirlooms, Nikes and bribes: Towards a sociology of things. Sociology 35, 1 (2001), 59--75.

[45]

Monika Kopplin. 2008. Flickwerk: The aesthetics of mended Japanese ceramics. Exhibition Catalogue 28.

[46]

Koren Leonard. 1994. Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers. (1994).

[47]

Lindie H. Liang, Douglas J. Brown, Huiwen Lian, Samuel Hanig, D. Lance Ferris, and Lisa M. Keeping. 2018. Righting a wrong: Retaliation on a voodoo doll symbolizing an abusive supervisor restores justice. The Leadership Quarterly.

[48]

Michal Luria, Amit Zoran, and Jodi Forlizzi. 2019. Challenges of Designing HCI for Negative Emotions. Arxiv Preprint Arxiv:1908.07577. Workshop Paper in Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

[49]

Gayla Margolin. 1979. Conjoint marital therapy to enhance anger management and reduce spouse abuse. American Journal of Family Therapy 7, 2 (1979), 13--23.

[50]

Claire Martin. 2016. Anger Rooms: A smashing new way to relieve stress. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/business/anger-rooms-a-smashing-new-way-to-relieve-stress.html.

[51]

Friedrich Nietzsche, Maudemarie Clark, and Alan J. Swensen. 1998. On the genealogy of morality. Hackett Publishing.

[52]

Donald A. Norman. 2004. Emotional design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Civitas Books.

[53]

Beste Özcan, Daniele Caligiore, Valerio Sperati, Tania Moretta, and Gianluca Baldassarre. 2016. Transitional wearable companions: A novel concept of soft interactive social robots to improve social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder. International Journal of Social Robotics 8, 4 (2016), 471--481.

[54]

W. Gerrod Parrott ed. 2014. The Positive Side of Negative Emotions. Guilford Publications.

[55]

Jeffrey S. Pierce, Brian C. Stearns, and Randy Pausch. 1999. Voodoo dolls: Seamless interaction at multiple scales in virtual environments. In Proceedings of the 1999 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics. ACM, 141--145.

Digital Library

[56]

Richard Posthuma and Jennifer D. Parlamis. 2012. Venting as emotion regulation: The influence of venting responses and respondent identity on anger and emotional tone. International Journal of Conflict Management 23, 1 (2012), 77--96.

[57]

David Pye. 1968. The nature and art of workmanship. Cambridge UP.

[58]

Renny Ramakers. 2002. Less+ more: Droog Design in context. 010 Publishers.

[59]

David Reiss, Marie Quayle, Tim Brett, and Clive Meux. 1998. Dramatherapy for mentally disordered offenders: Changes in levels of anger. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 8, 2 (1998), 139--153.

[60]

Marsha L. Richins. 1994. Valuing things: The public and private meanings of possessions. Journal of Consumer Research 21, 3 (1994), 504--521.

[61]

Julia Ringler and Holger Reckter. 2012. DESU 100: About the temptation to destroy a robot. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction. ACM, 151--152.

Digital Library

[62]

Yvonne Rogers. 2012. HCI theory: Classical, modern, and contemporary. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics 5, 2 (2012), 1--129.

[63]

Corina Sas, Steve Whittaker, and John Zimmerman. 2016. Design for rituals of letting go: an embodiment perspective on disposal practices informed by grief therapy. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 23, 4 (2016), 21.

Digital Library

[64]

Andrea Scarantino and Michael Nielsen. 2015. Voodoo dolls and angry lions: How emotions explain arational actions. Philosophical Studies 172, 11 (2015), 2975--2998.

[65]

Joseph A. Schumpeter. 2013. Capitalism, socialism and democracy. Routledge.

[66]

Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston. 2009. Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport 20, 12 (2009), 1056--1060.

[67]

Michael Suguitan and Guy Hoffman. 2019. Blossom: A handcrafted open-source robot. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI) 8, 1 (2019): 2.

[68]

Hidenobu Sumioka, Kensuke Koda, Shuichi Nishio, Takashi Minato, and Hiroshi Ishiguro. Revisiting ancient design of human form for communication avatar: Design considerations from chronological development of Dogū. 2013 IEEE RO-MAN. IEEE, 2013.

[69]

Xiang Zhi Tan, Marynel Vázquez, Elizabeth J. Carter, Cecilia G. Morales, and Aaron Steinfeld. 2018. Inducing bystander interventions during robot abuse with social mechanisms. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 169--177. ACM.

Digital Library

[70]

Anja Thieme, Jayne Wallace, James Thomas, Ko Le Chen, Nicole Krämer, and Patrick Olivier. 2011. Lovers’ box: Designing for reflection within romantic relationships. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 69, 5 (2011), 283--297.

Digital Library

[71]

Vasiliki Tsaknaki and Ylva Fernaeus. 2016. Expanding on Wabi-Sabi as a design resource in HCI. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 5970--5983.

Digital Library

[72]

Sherry Turkle. 2007. Authenticity in the age of digital companions. Interaction Studies 8, 3 (2007), 501--517.

[73]

Sherry Turkle. 2011. Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press.

[74]

Wouter Van der Hoog, Ianus Keller, and Pieter Jan Stappers. 2004. Gustbowl: Technology supporting affective communication through routine ritual interactions. In CHI’04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 775--776.

Digital Library

[75]

Nicolas Villar, Kiel Gilleade, Devina Ramdunyellis, and Hans Gellersen. 2007. The voodooio gaming kit: A real-time adaptable gaming controller. Computers in Entertainment (CIE) 5, 3 (2007), 7.

Digital Library

[76]

Donald W. Winnicott. 1986. 10. Transitional objects and transitional phenomena: A study of the first not-me. Essential Papers on Object Relations 254.

[77]

Ryuji Yamazaki, Shuichi Nishio, Kohei Ogawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Kohei Matsumura, Kensuke Koda, and Tsutomu Fujinami. 2012. How does telenoid affect the communication between children in classroom setting? In CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 351--366. ACM, 2012.

Digital Library

[78]

John Zimmerman, Jodi Forlizzi, and Shelley Evenson. 2007. Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 493--502. ACM.

Digital Library

[79]

Amit Zoran. 2013. Hybrid basketry: Interweaving digital practice within contemporary craft. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Gallery. ACM, 324--331.

Digital Library

[80]

Amit Zoran and Leah Buechley. 2013. Hybrid reassemblage: An exploration of craft, digital fabrication and artifact uniqueness. Leonardo 46, 1 (2013), 4--10.

[81]

Amit Zoran and Joseph A. Paradiso. 2013. FreeD: A freehand digital sculpting tool. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2613--2616.

Cited By

Vetter RDobrosovestnova AFrijns HVogel LBrunnmayr KFrauenberger C(2024)From care practices to speculative vignettes–design considerations for robots in good careFrontiers in Robotics and AI10.3389/frobt.2024.134736711Online publication date: 9-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2024.1347367
Guingrich RGraziano M(2024)Ascribing consciousness to artificial intelligence: human-AI interaction and its carry-over effects on human-human interactionFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2024.132278115Online publication date: 27-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1322781
Tost JFlechtner RMaué RHeidmann F(2024)Caring for a companion as a form of self-care. Exploring the design space for irritating companion technologies for mental healthProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685343(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685343
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Destruction, Catharsis, and Emotional Release in Human-Robot Interaction
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design process and methods
      1. Scenario-based design
    2. Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms

Recommendations

Towards Designing Companion Robots with the End in Mind
HRI '23: Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

This paper presents an early-stage idea of using 'robot death' as an integral component of human-robot interaction design for companion robots. Reviewing previous discussions around the deaths of companion robots in real-life and popular culture contexts,...
Human-Robot Conversational Interaction (HRCI)
HRI '23: Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

Conversation is one of the primary methods of interaction between humans and robots. It provides a natural way of communication with the robot, thereby reducing the obstacles that can be faced through other interfaces (e.g., text or touch) that may cause ...
Fake Empathy and Human-Robot Interaction HRI: A Preliminary Study

Empathy is a basic emotion trigger for human beings, especially while regulating social relationships and behaviour. The main challenge of this paper is study whether people's empathic reactions towards robots change depending on previous information ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction Volume 9, Issue 4

December 2020

192 pages

EISSN:2573-9522

DOI:10.1145/3403615

Editors:
Odest Chadwicke Jenkins
University of Michigan, USA
,
Selma Sabanovic
Indiana University, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2020 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial International 4.0 License.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 June 2020

Online AM: 07 May 2020

Accepted: 01 January 2020

Revised: 01 November 2019

Received: 01 March 2019

Published in THRI Volume 9, Issue 4

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

29
Total Citations
View Citations
3,742
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)655
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)96

Reflects downloads up to 06 Oct 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Vetter RDobrosovestnova AFrijns HVogel LBrunnmayr KFrauenberger C(2024)From care practices to speculative vignettes–design considerations for robots in good careFrontiers in Robotics and AI10.3389/frobt.2024.134736711Online publication date: 9-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2024.1347367
Guingrich RGraziano M(2024)Ascribing consciousness to artificial intelligence: human-AI interaction and its carry-over effects on human-human interactionFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2024.132278115Online publication date: 27-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1322781
Tost JFlechtner RMaué RHeidmann F(2024)Caring for a companion as a form of self-care. Exploring the design space for irritating companion technologies for mental healthProceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3679318.3685343(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3679318.3685343
Hu YLu JScinto-Madonich NPineros MLopes PHoffman G(2024)Designing Plant-Driven Actuators for Robots to Grow, Age, and DecayProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661519(2481-2496)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661519
Liu DZhou HAn P(2024)"When He Feels Cold, He Goes to the Seahorse"—Blending Generative AI into Multimaterial Storymaking for Family Expressive Arts TherapyProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642852(1-21)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642852
Winkle KMulvihill NGrollman DBroadbent EJu WSoh HWilliams T(2024)Anticipating the Use of Robots in Domestic Abuse: A Typology of Robot Facilitated Abuse to Support Risk Assessment and Mitigation in Human-Robot InteractionProceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3610977.3634938(781-790)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610977.3634938
Tudesco DDeshpande ALaghari AKhan ALopes RJenice Aroma RRaimond KTeng LKhan A(2024)Utilization of Deep Learning Models for Safe Human‐Friendly Computing in Cloud, Fog, and Mobile Edge NetworksApplying Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity Analytics and Cyber Threat Detection10.1002/9781394196470.ch12(221-248)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394196470.ch12
Ljungblad S(2023)Applying “Designerly Framing” to Understand Assisted Feeding as Social Aesthetic Bodily ExperiencesACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/358374212:2(1-23)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3583742
Rossmy BTerzimehić NDöring TBuschek DWiethoff A(2023)Point of no Undo: Irreversible Interactions as a Design StrategyProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581433(1-18)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581433
Sabie SSoden RJackson SParikh T(2023)Unmaking as Emancipation: Lessons and Reflections from LuddismProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581412(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581412
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents