Congratulations to Dr. Clara Colombatto and Dr. Shana MacDonald whose projects were awarded funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF).
The CFI provides funding to institutions to help recruit and retain outstanding researchers, acquire the tools needed for cutting-edge research and support partnership streams such as the Canada Research Chairs and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Colombatto and MacDonald are among 26 researchers at Waterloo receiving funding.
Learn more about their projects:
Socio-cognitive foundations of human-machine interactions
Project lead: Dr. Clara Colombatto (Psychology)
Co-investigators: Dr. Elizabeth Nilsen (Psychology) and Dr. Evan Risko (Psychology)
Artificial intelligence (AI) holds great promise for aiding users in a wide range of settings, but effective interactions with humans are often difficult, as AI systems currently lack important cues that we routinely employ in the perception of other people. While much work has explored how robots can detect and communicate human-like emotions, it remains unclear how robots can signal cognitive states, such as attention and confidence - signals that are essential for collaboration and joint decision-making.
The proposed research aims to enhance human-AI interactions by examining physical cues to cognitive states in humans and robots: first, physical markers of attention and confidence will be measured in human participants using biosensing tools. These cues will then be implemented in artificial agents, and their impact on users' impressions and collaborative efficiency will be measured via behavioural assessments. The infrastructure will also be used to examine contextual and individual contributors to sensitivity to markers of cognitive states, as well as changes in interactions with and attitudes towards robots across development.
Combining the expertise of the research team with state-of-the-art technology, this research will uncover new factors regulating human-AI interactions and foster more accurate perceptions of AI for calibrated (rather than misguided) trust with diverse applications, from joint decision-making in healthcare and teleoperations to learning in educational settings.
Dr. Clara Colombatto
Interdisciplinary Feminist Research Lab
Project lead: Dr. Shana MacDonald (Communication Arts)
Co-investigators: Dr. Alana Cattapan (Political Science) and Nicole Nolette (French Studies)
The Interdisciplinary Feminist Research Lab (IFRL) brings together established leading experts in the fields of media, politics, and culture in a shared, interdisciplinary effort to better understand how forms of hate are circulated online through different digital media platforms to create a toxic media ecosystem that is detrimental to women and others subject to gender based violence. The IFRL aims to map the implications of online gendered hate (OGH) for the lives of women, trans, and gender diverse people by developing and employing a connected set of unique methodological approaches brought together by the existing expertise of the co-applicants, all recognized as international leaders in their respective fields.
The project objectives include: an extensive scoping review; a multi-method data collection including big data collections of social media content, archival research, and human-centered interview and focus group conversations; data analysis and visualization; and a synthesis of all findings into accessible outputs including a toolkit, policy recommendations, and a podcast.
The IFRL will enable a collaborative research and learning environment to develop and grow at the University of Waterloo, engaging established researchers, students, and early career scholars, to facilitate collaborative examinations of how OGH has been linked to forms of offline violence and are starting to become part of mainstream discussions within contemporary law, policy, and culture.
Dr. Shana MacDonald