Mira Gruber, undergraduate research on robot-human interactions
Mira Gruber is now a doctoral candidate in human factors and cognitive psychology at the University of Central Florida. She earned her BA, summa cum laude, in Psychology and Philosophy at James Madison University. Her primary interests are the role of existential anxiety in robot-human interactions, especially in the domain of caregiving robotics. She has been the recipient of the JMU Senior Award for Academic Achievement, Outstanding Student in Philosophy, and Outstanding Undergraduate Scholarship Award.
Mira on the web: Twitter | LinkedIn | Research Gate
By Kenneth Vail, Cleveland State University. August 18, 2021.
ISSEP: How did you first become aware of and interested in existentialism and existential psychology?
Mira Gruber: Well aside from psychology, I was also double-majoring in philosophy, so of course I had learned about existentialism. But I had only taken research methods and some basic psych courses so I didn’t know psychological scientists were studying these big existentialist ideas in concrete ways. Then I began looking for research opportunities and joined Dr. Harvell-Bowman’s lab, where I learned that there’s this whole branch of research dedicated to existential psychology. Suddenly, it was like the two worlds of my two majors had collided and it was so amazing it just kind of blew me away.
I’d always been interested in these big philosophical ideas about who we are, as individuals and as societies, and what makes people worry about the meaning of life or whether gods exist—and I loved comparing the ideas of everyone from Freud to C.S. Lewis. Those sorts of questions always seemed so important. Then, in Dr. Harvell-Bowman’s lab, I became aware of how so many different aspects of our lives, and our cultures, are tied to things like death-anxiety and the motivation to experience a sense of personal autonomy. Just as importantly, though, I started to learn about all the different ways to test these ideas using research methods available in contemporary psychological science.
ISSEP: As an undergraduate researcher, your work focused on whether parasocial relationships with caregiving robots could also soothe existential concerns among the elderly. Can you tell us more about that?
Prior research has found humanoid robots can be eerie, creepy machines that cause uncanny feelings and even elevate death-related existential concerns.
Mira Gruber: Sure! With the Boomer generation aging, we’re going to need to come up with ways to care for the largest number of older adults than ever before. One solution is caregiving robots. Of course, robots can be designed to help anticipate and provide care for physical medical needs. But as the patient load begins to outpace the number of available caregiving staff, it may also be tempting to try to design robots to simulate human interactions, address loneliness, and even provide comfort in the face of existential psychological concerns. However, prior research has found that humanoid robots can be eerie, creepy, machines that elicit uncanny feelings. That uncanniness can actually backfire, amplifying feelings of being in a strange and unpredictable situation, heighten concerns about being alone, and even elevate death-related concerns.
So, I did a study to test whether clearly mechanical (rather than humanoid) caregiving robots would or would not cause similar death-related existential concerns. I collected data from elderly residents of a local residential facility. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a baseline condition in which they watched a video depicting a human caregiver supporting an elderly patient, or a target condition where they watched a video depicting a non-humanoid caregiving robot doing the same. Then, I measured death-related anxiety and death-related cognitions. The data patterns showed that, compared to the human caregiver, viewing the non-humanoid robot caregiver did not elevate death-related existential concerns.
Much more research on the topic is necessary, of course. But one interesting implication is that it might turn out to be better to deploy clearly mechanical caregiving robots, rather than anything that might approach the potentially uncanny realm of humanoid robots. Similarly, it might be that the most effective robots are those that merely facilitate human agency in caregiving (e.g., transparently responding to patient/provider commands, or featuring video screens during remote controlled video-med sessions), rather than attempting to uncannily mimic human agency, in providing their care. We’ll definitely need more research to explore those sorts of possibilities further.
ISSEP: How did you develop your interest in existential psychology and caregiving robotics?
Philip K. Dick’s (1968) novel Do androids dream of electric sheep, and the film adaptation Blade Runner (1982), starring Harrison Ford.
Mira Gruber: While I was preparing for my honors thesis, I was taking a class called “Animals, machines and morality.” So, I was reading a lot of science fiction that had to do with the relationships between humans and sophisticated android robots, like Philip K. Dick’s (1968) Do androids dream of electric sheep (and its 1982 film adaptation, Blade Runner). The problems of “passability” and uncanniness fascinated me. I wanted to learn more about the existential psychological processes involved in human-robot interactions and the implications for well-being.
We also learned about the possible role of robotics in helping to manage the challenges that will come when the Boomer generation ages out of the workforce and begins to require more involved physical and mental healthcare. Those considerations all led me to develop a strong interest in thinking about how to best understand the intersection of healthcare, robot-human interactions, and existential psychology so we can more effectively facilitate well-being.
ISSEP: That’s great! Outside of psychological science, do you see your research topic being dealt with in any other interesting ways in the humanities or the arts?
Mira Gruber: Yes! A few years ago, around 2012, an artist and designer named Dan Chen noticed the emergence of machines designed to comfort dementia patients. Although seemingly effective, he rejected the idea that robots could ever hope to provide any meaningful existential comforts. To illustrate, he created an “End of Life Care Machine” as part of an interactive art installation. In the exhibit, a “doctor” greets the “patient” who then lays in a hospital bed; the machine is placed over the patient’s arm, the doctor leaves, and the LED screen displays a message reading “Detecting end of life.” The robot then displays “End of life detected,” begins to caress the patient’s arm, and a voice provides one of a variety of comforting messages, such as the following:
“Hello, my friend.
I am the end of life care robot.
I have detected that you are near/at the end of your life.
But please don’t worry,
We will ensure that you have the best possible experience.
I am here to help you and guide you through your last moments on earth.
I am sorry that your family and friends are not able to be here with you.
But don’t worry I will do my best to comfort you.
You are not alone.
You have me by your side.
We hope you will have a pleasant afterlife.
Time of death: 11:45.
Goodbye, my friend.”
It’s such a vivid and powerful depiction of the challenges with attempting to design caregiving robots—especially for those needing care while facing end of life experiences.
ISSEP: What do you think are some of the remaining issues in studying the existential dynamics of parasocial human-robot interactions, and what do you see as the most important next steps toward better understanding those experiences?
Mira Gruber: Well, this area of research is really just in its infancy, so there’s so much that is unknown! We really need research to explore so much more about the existential dynamics of robot-human interactions—everything from the impact of the uncanny valley, to social comparisons, to potential therapeutic functions.
ISSEP: You attended, and presented research at, our Existential Psychology Pre-conference as an undergraduate. What was that experience like?
“I felt like an active colleague right along with all these other researchers around the world... what a great feeling!”
Mira Gruber: It was great! It was my first conference [2020] outside of my university’s student conference, so it was a little intimidating. I read and cited so many impressive researchers in my own papers—and now here I was seeing, and hearing, and meeting them! But everyone was so friendly and down to earth; they really made me feel welcome. Before the conference I felt like I’d just been passively reading everyone else’s research, but during and after the conference I felt like an active colleague right along with all these other researchers around the world; that made such a huge difference—what a great feeling!
ISSEP: What was your favorite part of the event?
Mira Gruber: I really enjoyed learning about other people’s research. I was new to the field, so it was great to be exposed to so many fascinating research projects in so many different topical areas. One of my favorite speakers at the conference [2020] was Nina Strohminger; she conducted research among Buddhist monks who had dedicated themselves to eliminating death anxiety and becoming selfless—and found that, surprisingly (or maybe not!), they actually had higher death anxiety and selfishness than lay Buddhists. It really made me wonder about the dynamic between existential concerns and the motivation to reduce them, as well as the difference between explicit/conscious contemplation of a concept and the more “sub-terranian” mental processes that often seem to take place so far outside of our awareness. Anyway, I thought that was so fascinating!
ISSEP: What is one piece of advice you would give to future students who have an interest in following in your footsteps?
“First, get actively involved in research... Second, look for ways to explore your own authentic interests...”
Mira Gruber: Two pieces of advice. First, get actively involved in research. Find a research lab with as much of a shared interest as you can, join it, and swim with the current—just get involved in whatever they’re doing and build as much procedural experience as you can. Second, look for ways to explore your own authentic interests in the research opportunities available to you. After you get involved in a research lab, you might see if you can start to suggest ideas that you find interesting. Or you might also enroll in an undergraduate honors thesis program, where you can develop your own research question, design and conduct and analyze your own study, and take the lead in presenting that work as an expression of your own passions and interests. When you do that, all of a sudden the whole process—from mastering abstract theory to learning the statistical tools—becomes super fun and engaging. Plus it can be a great way to showcase your skills and abilities when it comes to grad school applications.
ISSEP: Can you tell us a little about yourself outside the research context?
Mira Gruber: A fun fact about me is that I’m an identical triplet. My two identical sisters are a big part of my life, we talk all the time. My two cats are a big part of my life too, but they’re less talkative.
In the past few years, I’ve gotten really into playing soccer. I never really did any sports before college, but now I love it! It’s a fun reason to get outside and run around with friends; when the pandemic is over, I’m going to see if I can join a team for a league so I can play in some actual games.
I grew up around horses, in Northern Virginia, and recently found out a friend from Virginia runs a horse farm nearby. Oddly enough, she’s also in psychology, doing equine-assisted therapy. So it’s been great to be able to visit with her, do some riding, and reconnect with farm life.
ISSEP: A lot of us like to listen to music in the lab; what are you listening to lately?
Mira Gruber: One song at the top of my playlist is David Bowie’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (1972). I love Bowie and there’s a line he repeats throughout the song—no matter what or who you’ve been, no matter when or where you’ve seen—you’re not alone. I like a lot of rock from the 1970s and some from a bit earlier.
Also, I wind up listening to a lot of what Gen Z is into, because I’m a frequent TikTok scroller. So I found myself learning about and liking stuff like Miley Cyrus’s covers of Tom Petty’s Wildflowers and Blondie’s Heart of Glass.
The last concert I saw though, before the pandemic, was the Avett Brothers at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia. Lawn tickets, beautiful weather, great music—loved it!