SFB 1410:  Hybrid Societies: Humans Interacting with Embodied Technologies

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences ; Humanities ; Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Mechanical and Industrial Engineering ; Mathematics ; Medicine
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 416228727

Digital technologies gain autonomy and meet humans in more and more places in various physical forms, for instance as self-driving vehicles, robots, and drones, but also as avatars and other smart agents with virtual bodies. Digital technologies do also connect more often to the human body as digitally augmented prosthetics, exoskeletons, and virtual reality goggles, for example. Such technologies are embodied digital technologies (EDTs). Autonomously acting EDTs and humans sharing real or virtual environments as well as humans wearing EDTs or operating artificial bodies create hybrid societies. For efficient and smooth interaction in hybrid societies, human capabilities and technological possibilities have to be analyzed with specific foci and matched in novel ways. To this end, social sciences, humanities, and engineering disciplines have to join forces. The collaborative research of these disciplines on human-machine interaction is exceptionally strong at Chemnitz University of Technology. The CRC Hybrid Societies gathers the local expertise around a core in psychology and creates an international center for empirical investigation, analysis, and development that are urgently needed to ensure the most beneficial coexistence of living and synthetic bodies in the imminent hybrid societies. The CRC’s two leading research questions are: What is required so that humans can coordinate with EDTs as smoothly as with conspecifics? And: How to design EDTs to meet these requirements? For smooth coordination in shared environments, perceiving general capabilities and situation-specific intentions of interaction partners as well as predictable and cooperative action control are needed on the sides of both humans and EDTs. Accordingly, research in the CRC is grouped in four connected research areas: (A) Embodied Sensor and Motor Capabilities encompasses sensing, predicting, and executing movements when coordinating and interacting with EDTs. (B) Artificial Bodies comprises attributing capabilities to EDTs based on the appearance of their artificial bodies and their behavior as well as experiencing artificial bodies as substitutes or extensions of the human body. (C) Shared Environments targets joint attention, spatial orientation, and coordinated behavior of humans and EDTs. Fourth, (D) Intentionality in Hybrid Societies focuses on the attribution and communication of situation- specific intentions between humans and EDTs. Thus, the CRC Hybrid Societies comprehensively addresses looming societal challenges. It arises from collaborative research projects and infrastructure in the university’s core competencies Humans and Technology, and Materials and Intelligent Systems, and will strengthen and expand them substantially - also via the CRC's integrated and internationally embedded research training group - to form a future-oriented and internationally recognized science center that generates sound scientific results ensuring beneficial hybrid societies.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - From Action Perception to Joint Actions: Learning from Joint Handover Actions of Human Dyads for Robotic Actions and Human-Robot interactions (Project Head Voelcker-Rehage, Ph.D., Claudia )
• A02 - Learning Flexible Decision: Making and Motor Control in Robots for Human-Robot Interaction (Project Head Hamker, Fred Henrik )
• A03 - Customized Body-attached Sensor Network for Real-Time Motion Sensory Information (Project Heads Kanoun, Olfa ;  Odenwald, Stephan )
• A04 - Unobtrusive Evaluation of System Latency in Digital Technologies (Project Heads Bendixen, Alexandra ;  Krems, Josef F. )
• B01 - Human Minds in Digital Technologie - Processes and Effects of (De-)Anthropomorphism (Project Heads Ohler, Peter ;  Rey, Günter Daniel )
• B02 - Disquising Undesired Cues in Motions (Project Heads Brunnett, Guido ;  Milani, Thomas )
• B03 - TechnoSapiens: Perceptions and Stereotyping of Bionic Body Restauration and Augmentation (Project Heads Asbrock, Frank ;  Brunnett, Guido ;  Meyer, Bertolt )
• C01 - Gaze Interactions in Shared Spaces (Project Head Einhäuser-Treyer, Wolfgang )
• C02 - Spatial Orientation in Telepresence (Project Heads Jahn, Georg ;  Klimant, Philipp )
• C03 - Learning Human-like Trajectories for Whole-Body Motion with Artificial Force Fields (Project Head Thomas, Ulrike )
• C04 - Highly Dexterous Telemanipulation with Haptic Feedback and Shared Autonomy (Project Heads Müller, Florian ;  Thomas, Ulrike )
• D01 - Intentionality and Joint Attention in Multimodal Interaction (Project Heads Bressem, Jana ;  Fricke, Ellen )
• D02 - Detection of Implicit Driving Cues as the Basis for a Proactive Driving Style of Highly Automated Cars (Project Heads Bullinger-Hoffmann, Angelika ;  Krems, Josef F. )
• D03 - Credibility Through Non-native Language Varieties in Conversational Pedagogical Agents (Project Heads Eibl, Maximilian ;  Rey, Günter Daniel ;  Schmied, Josef )
• D04 - Social Displays. On the Accountability of Embodied Digital Technologies in Everyday Life (Project Head Müller, Michael R. )
• E01 - Mathematical Methods to Extract Information from High-dimensional Data (Project Heads Helmberg, Christoph ;  Pichler, Ph.D., Alois ;  Potts, Daniel )
• E02 - Development of an Integrative Model of Perspectives, Requirements, and Implications of Responsible (Inter-)Action of Humans and EDTs (Project Heads Gesmann-Nuissl, Dagmar ;  Strobel, Anja )
• INF - Information Infrastructure Environment for Systematic, Interdisciplinary, and Sustainable Research Data Management in Transdisciplinary Research Environments (Project Heads Gaedke, Martin ;  Gesmann-Nuissl, Dagmar )
• MGK - Integrated Research Training Group Hybrid Societies (Project Heads Jahn, Georg ;  Strobel, Anja )
• Z - Central Tasks of the Collaborative Research Centre (Project Heads Jahn, Georg ;  Meyer, Bertolt )
• Ö - Knowing, Assessing, and Engaging with Embodied Technologies (Project Head Pentzold, Christian )

• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Chemnitz
• Spokespersons: Professor Dr. Georg Jahn, until 9/2022; Professor Dr. Bertolt Meyer, since 10/2022