Symmetry is an important cue for the aesthetic judgment of beauty. Using a binary forced-choice format in a cued mixed design, Jacobsen and Höfel (2003) compared aesthetic judgments of beauty and symmetry judgments of novel graphic patterns. A late posterior sustained negativity elicited by symmetric patterns was observed in the symmetry judgment condition, but not in the beauty judgement condition. Therefore, this negativity appeared to be mainly driven by the task.In a series of studies, Bertamini, Makin, and colleagues observed a comparable sustained posterior negativity (SPN) to symmetric stimuli, mainly taken to reflect obligatory symmetry processing independent of task requirements. We reanalyzed the data by Jacobsen and Höfel (2003) using similar parameters for data analysis as Bertamini, Makin, and colleagues to examine these apparent differences. The reanalysis confirmed both a task-driven effect on the posterior sustained negativity/SPN to symmetric patterns in the symmetry judgment condition and a strong symmetry-driven SPN to symmetric patterns. Differences between the references used for analyses of the electroencephalogram (EEG) had an effect. Based on the reanalysis, the Jacobsen and Höfel (2003) data also fit well with Bertamini’s, Makin’s, and colleagues’ account of obligatory symmetry processing.

Current research on conversational recommender systems (CRS) focuses mainly on single-user interactions, neglecting situations where multiple users need to receive suggestions on a shared goal. This requires a CRS to conduct a multi-party dialogue and participate in the negotiation process, which presents various research challenges. In this paper, we investigate how actively a CRS needs to participate in a multi-party negotiation dialogue by conducting a WoZ study. The study compares conversational strategies of a CRS – conversation-leading and -following – regarding task effectiveness and efficiency, user experience, and group dynamics. The user study highlighted both the advantages and disadvantages of employing a conversation-leading strategy in a CRS. The strategy sped up decisions and lessened chatbot moderation but had drawbacks: bias towards dominant individuals and lower group performance. Our findings also highlighted how users’ openness to experience affected their views on the strategy’s perspicuity and dependability.

Solving failures is part of our private and work lives. With the ongoing changes in the industrial production setting, we have to deal with new failure originators: collaborative robots (cobots). Failure communication and subsequent recovery are essential to improve performance and restore trust after cobot failures. Therefore, we propose a framework for cobot failure management (FCFM) to support failure communication and solving in the production context. In a study with workers (N = 35), we investigate the impact of the helpfulness of the FCFM for workers. The first preliminary results demonstrate that the FCFM helps facilitate failure communication and rectification.

Visual attention can be adjusted to task requirements. We asked participants to switch between judging the symmetry of vertically presented three-letter strings and identifying the central stimulus (i.e., Eriksen task) to investigate anticipatory adjustment of attention. Our experiments provide evidence for anticipatory adjustment of visual attention, depending on the cued task (i.e., focusing and defocusing of attention after the Eriksen task cue and after the symmetry task cue, respectively). Although, symmetry judgments were, overall, considerably slower than the identification of the central letter, the effects of response congruency between tasks were comparable in the two tasks, which suggested strong response priming from concurrent symmetry judgment in Eriksen task trials. Symmetry judgment performance was best for homogeneous letter strings (e.g., HHH), worst for strings that were symmetrical and inhomogeneous (e.g., XHX), and intermediate for asymmetrical strings (e.g., HHX). The difficulty of categorizing symmetrical-inhomogeneous items markedly deviated from the aesthetic ratings of the stimuli, displaying a pronounced preference for symmetrical strings, but only little difference among the symmetrical items, and might be accounted by conflict with response priming based on inhomogeneity detection. Although our study provides little evidence for an effect of aesthetic appreciation in simple symmetry judgments, it demonstrates the strong role of contextual dependencies.

The aging population and chronic staff shortages are prompting care facilities to use service robots (SR) as part of daily care. There are high hopes for support with physical workloads and routine tasks, but adoption often stalls due to technical complexity, poor integration into workflows, and fears that "support" could become "replacement". We address this problem by viewing care as a value-driven practice rather than a list of tasks. In a participatory interview study with caregivers and care recipients in three facilities, based on value-sensitive design, we identified expectations, non-negotiable boundaries, and the values that should guide robot behavior. Participants identified credible roles for SRs in logistics, documentation, reminders, and guidance, but rejected intimate or safety-critical care tasks. Acceptance depends on value-oriented and fluid adaptivity. Robots should dynamically modulate initiative, proactivity, and interaction modality to maintain human attentiveness and warmth, sustain independence, support control over workload, and take legal safeguards into account. We contribute to this (1) with an empirically grounded overview of acceptable potentials and limitations guided by stakeholder values, (2) with a value-sensitive design-based framework for fluid adaptivity as a mechanism that operationalizes values in daily interaction, and (3) design requirements for user-centered, transparent, and context-sensitive SRs that reduce workload and create space for human care rather than replacing it.