Browsing by Subject "Sentience"

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    Does mind perception explain the uncanny valley effect? A meta-regression analysis and (de)humanization experiment.
    (Elsevier, 2024) MacDorman, Karl F.
    Gray and Wegner (2012) proposed that when robots look human, their appearance prompts attributions of experience, including sensations and feelings, which is uncanny. This theory, confusingly termed mind perception, differs from perceptual theories of the uncanny valley in that the robots' eeriness is not stimulus-driven. To explore this seminal theory, we conducted a meta-regression analysis of 10 experiments and a (de)humanization experiment. In the first part, experiments were identified in the literature that manipulated artificial entity's experience using descriptions. However, experiments with no observable stimuli yielded larger effects for experience and eeriness than those with robots and virtual reality characters. This finding undermines a theory that purports to explain how a robot's human likeness causes eeriness. Further, a second issue concerns Gray and Wegner's protocol based on a vignette design. Reading about an entity with experience activates thoughts that may not be activated when encountering it, and these thoughts may increase its eeriness. Therefore, the paper's second part focuses on an experiment we conducted with a novel humanization–dehumanization protocol. Participants' attitudes on robots' similarity to humans were gradually shifted to manipulate robots' perceived humanness, experience, and agency. However, the manipulation's effect on eeriness and coldness was mostly nonsignificant or counter to prediction. Differences in the robots' physical appearance had a much larger effect on their eeriness and coldness. In fact, as a mediator, experience mitigated the stimulus's overall effect of increasing eeriness. These results favor perceptual theories, rather than mind perception, in explaining the uncanny valley.
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    Embryo Adoption: Implications of Personhood, Marriage, and Parenthood
    (2008-04-14T12:30:19Z) McMillen, Brooke Marie; Brand, Peggy Zeglin; Eberl, Jason T.; Burke, Michael B.
    One’s personal claims regarding personhood will influence his moral belief regarding embryo adoption. In Chapter One, I consider the personhood of the human embryo. If the human embryo is a person, we are morally obligated to permit the practice of embryo adoption as an ethical means to save human persons. However, for those who do not claim that an embryo is a person at conception, embryo adoption is not a necessary practice because we have no moral obligation to protect them. There are still others who claim that personhood is gained at some point during gestation when certain mental capacities develop. I offer my own claim that consciousness and sentience as well as the potential to be self-conscious mark the beginning of personhood. Embryo adoption raises several questions surrounding the institution of marriage. Due to its untraditional method of procreation, embryo adoption calls into question the role of procreation within marriage. In Chapter Two, I explore the nature of the marriage relationship by offering Lisa Cahill’s definition of marriage which involves both a spiritual and physical dimension, and then I describe the concept of marriage from different perspectives including a social, religious, and a personal perspective. From a personal perspective, I explore the relationship between marriage and friendship. Finally, I describe how the concept of marriage is understood today and explore the advantages to being married as opposed to the advantages of being single. Embryo adoption changes the way we customarily think about procreation within a family because in embryo adoption, couples are seeking an embryo from another union to be implanted into the woman. This prompts some philosophers to argue that embryo adoption violates the marriage relationship. In Chapter Three, I further consider the impact of embryo adoption on the family as an extension of the marital relationship as well as the impact of embryo adoption on the traditional roles of motherhood and fatherhood. I examine motherhood by looking at how some philosophers define motherhood and when these philosophers claim a woman becomes a mother. After considering these issues regarding motherhood, I examine the same issues surrounding fatherhood. Peg Brand, PhD., Chair