Artificial intelligence systems absorb values from their training data. The trouble is that values differ across cultures. So an AI system trained on data from the entire internet won’t work equally well for people from different cultures.

But a new 91̽�� study suggests that AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior. Researchers had AI systems observe people from two cultural groups playing a video game. On average, participants in one group behaved more altruistically. The AI assigned to each group learned that group’s degree of altruism, and was able to apply that value to a novel scenario beyond the one they were trained on.

The team Dec. 9 in PLOS One. 

“We shouldn’t hard code a universal set of values into AI systems, because many cultures have their own values,” said senior author , a 91̽��professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology. “So we wanted to find out if an AI system can learn values the way children do, by observing people in their culture and absorbing their values.”

As inspiration, the team looked to showing that 19-month-old children raised in Latino and Asian households were more than those from other cultures. 

In the AI study, the team recruited 190 adults who identified as white and 110 who identified as Latino. Each group was assigned an AI agent, a system that can function autonomously. 

These agents were trained with a method called inverse reinforcement learning, or IRL. In the more common AI training method, reinforcement learning, or RL, a system is given a goal and gets rewarded based on how well it works toward that goal. In IRL, the AI system observes the behavior of a human or another AI agent, and infers the goal and underlying rewards. So a robot trained to play tennis with RL would be rewarded when it scores points, while a robot trained with IRL would watch professionals playing tennis and learn to emulate them by inferring goals such as scoring points.

This IRL approach more closely aligns with how humans develop. 

“Parents don’t simply train children to do a specific task over and over. Rather, they model or act in the general way they want their children to act. For example, they model sharing and caring towards others,” said co-author , a 91̽��professor of psychology and co-director of Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS). “Kids learn almost by osmosis how people act in a community or culture. The human values they learn are more ‘caught’ than ‘taught.’”

In the study, the AI agents were given the data of the participants playing a modified version of the video game Overcooked, in which players work to cook and deliver as much onion soup as possible. Players could see into another kitchen where a second player had to walk further to accomplish the same tasks, putting them at an obvious disadvantage. Participants didn’t know that the second player was a bot programmed to ask the human players for help. Participants could choose to give away onions to help the bot but at the personal cost of delivering less soup. 

Researchers found that overall the people in the Latino group chose to help more than those in the white group, and the AI agents learned the altruistic values of the group they were trained on. When playing the game, the agent trained on Latino data gave away more onions than the other agent. 

To see if the AI agents had learned a general set of values for altruism, the team conducted a second experiment. In a separate scenario, the agents had to decide whether to donate a portion of their money to someone in need. Again, the agents trained on Latino data from Overcooked were more altruistic. 

“We think that our proof-of-concept demonstrations would scale as you increase the amount and variety of culture-specific data you feed to the AI agent. Using such an approach, an AI company could potentially fine-tune their model to learn a specific culture’s values before deploying their AI system in that culture,” Rao said. 

Additional research is needed to know how this type of IRL training would perform in real-world scenarios, with more cultural groups, competing sets of values, and more complicated problems.

“Creating culturally attuned AI is an essential question for society,” Meltzoff said. “How do we create systems that can take the perspectives of others into account and become civic minded?”

, a 91̽��research engineer in the Allen School, and , a software engineer at Microsoft who completed this research as a 91̽��student, were co-lead authors. Other co-authors include , a scientist at the Allen Institute who completed this research as a 91̽��doctoral student; , an assistant professor at San Diego State University, who completed this research as a post-doctoral scholar at UW; and , a professor in the Allen School and director of the at UW. 

For more information, contact Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people who recognize the connections they share with others are more likely to wear a mask, follow health guidelines and help people, even at a potential cost to themselves, a new 91̽�� study shows.

Indeed, an identification with all humanity, as opposed to identification with a geographic area like a country or town, predicts whether someone will engage in “prosocial” behaviors particular to the pandemic, such as donating their own masks to a hospital or coming to the aid of a sick person.

The , published March 10 in PLOS ONE, is drawn from about 2,500 responses, from more than 80 countries, to an online, international study launched last April.

Researchers say the findings could have implications for public health messaging during the pandemic: Appealing to individuals’ deep sense of connectedness to others could, for example, encourage some people to get vaccinated, wear masks or follow other public health guidelines.

“We want to understand to what extent people feel connected with and identify with all humanity, and how that can be used to explain the individual differences in how people respond during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said author , a postdoctoral researcher at the 91̽��Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS, who co-led the study with postdoctoral researcher at the Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science and Engineering.

In psychology, “identification with all humanity” is a belief that can be measured and utilized in predicting behavior or informing policy or decision-making. Last spring, as governments around the world were imposing pandemic restrictions, a multidisciplinary team of 91̽��researchers came together to study the implications of how people would respond to pandemic-related ethical dilemmas, and how those responses might be associated with various psychological beliefs.

Researchers designed an online study, providing different scenarios based in social psychology and game theory, for participants to consider. The team then made the study available in English and five other languages on the virtual lab , which co-author , an associate professor in the Allen School, created for conducting behavioral studies with people around the world.

The scenarios presented participants with situations that could arise during the pandemic and asked people to what extent they would:

• Follow the list of World Health Organization health guidelines (which mostly focused on social distancing and hygiene when the study was run between mid-April to mid-June)
• Donate masks of their family’s to a hospital short on masks
• Drive a person exhibiting obvious symptoms of COVID-19 to the hospital
• Go to a grocery store to buy food for a neighboring family
• Call an ambulance and wait with a sick person for it to arrive

In addition to demographic details and information about their local pandemic restrictions, such as stay-at-home orders, participants were asked questions to get at the psychology behind their responses: about their own felt identification with their local community, their nation and humanity, in general. For instance, participants were asked, “How much would you say you care (feel upset, want to help) when bad things happen to people all over the world?”

Researchers found that an identification with “all humanity” significantly predicted answers to the five scenarios, well above identifying with country or community, and after controlling for other variables such as gender, age or education level. Its effect was stronger than any other factor, said Barragan, and popped out as a highly significant predictor of people’s tendency to want to help others.

The authors noted that identifying with one’s country, in fact, came in a distant third, behind identification with humanity in general and one’s local community. Strong feelings toward one’s nation, nationalism, can lead to behavior and policies that favor some groups of people over others.

“There is variability in how people respond to the social aspects of the pandemic. Our research reveals that a crucial aspect of one’s world view – how much people feel connected to others they have never met – predicts people’s cooperation with public health measures and the altruism they feel toward others during the pandemic,” said co-author , who is co-director of I-LABS and holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology.

Since last spring, of course, much has changed. More than 2.5 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19, vaccines are being administered, and guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, especially regarding masks, has evolved. If a new survey was launched today, Barragan said, the research group would like to include scenarios tuned to the current demands of the pandemic and the way it challenges us to care for others even while we maintain physical distancing.

While surveys, in general, can be prone to what’s known as self-serving bias — the participant answers in ways that they believe will make them “look good” — researchers say that’s not evident here. They point to the sizeable differences between responses that identify with all humanity, and those that identify with community or country, and note there would be little reason for participants to deliberately emphasize one and not the others.

The project is part of a larger multidisciplinary effort by this same 91̽��research team to bring together computer scientists and psychologists interested in decision-making in different cultural contexts, which could inform our understanding of human and machine learning.

An eventual aim of the study is to use tools from artificial intelligence research and online interactions with humans around the world to understand how one’s culture influences social and moral decision-making.

“This project is a wonderful example of how the tools of computer science can be combined with psychological science to understand human moral behaviors, revealing new information for the public good,” said co-author , the Hwang Endowed Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the UW.

For COVID-19 and future humanitarian crises, the ethical dilemmas presented in the study can offer insight into what propels people to help, which can, in turn, inform policy and outreach.

“While it is true that many people don’t seem to be exhibiting helpful behaviors during this pandemic, what our study shows is that there are specific characteristics that predict who is especially likely to engage in such behavior,” Barragan said. “Future work could help people to feel a stronger connection to others, and this could promote more helpful behavior during pandemics.”

Additional co-authors were Koosha Khalvati, a doctoral student in the Allen School and Rechele Brooks, a research scientist with I-LABS.

The study was funded by the UW, the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Barragan at barragan@uw.edu or Meltzoff at meltzoff@uw.edu.

Meanwhile, you’ve read news stories highlighting the urgent PPE needs of your local hospital.

Do you donate some of your masks to the hospital? All of them? None?

Such is a moral dilemma under COVID-19, and one posed by a new international study led by the 91̽��. The five- to seven-minute, anonymous is designed to gauge the perception of ethical situations as the pandemic evolves around the world. Respondents take the survey, add basic demographic details, as well as information about current restrictions in place in their community, and learn at the end how their answers compare to others.

“People are making important decisions, big and small, in this time of COVID-19. Many find themselves facing moral dilemmas about ‘what’s the right thing to do’ in this situation,” said , a 91̽��psychology professor and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. “This helps us learn about similarities and differences in the opinions and feelings among people as we all cope with this unique event.”

There are no right or wrong answers, researchers say, because the way each person responds may reflect the norms of where they live.

Ultimately, the research aims to help inform the ways artificial intelligence can become more attuned to cultural variations in how people think about decisions in health care settings, said , a professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and a co-director of the ,

“There is an urgent need to answer this question given the growing use of AI in medical contexts,” Rao said. Human moral values likely vary from one culture to another, so “AI systems need to ‘learn’ culture-specific moral values by interacting with humans, similar to how children learn their moral values.”

The scenarios in the survey are based on classic dilemmas posed in ethics, social psychology and game theory, Rao said. In two situations, the respondent is asked to imagine themselves as a doctor and to make a potentially life-altering choice. In other scenarios, the respondent is a passer-by or a neighbor presented with a not-so-simple opportunity to help.

The survey is available on the virtual lab , which , an associate professor in the Allen School and co-leader of the study with Meltzoff and Rao, created for conducting behavioral studies with people around the world. So far the moral dilemmas survey has been translated into five languages, including Spanish, German and Farsi (with more to come), and participants have come from about 70 countries. Researchers expect trends in responses to reflect geography and culture, Reinecke said.

Researchers expect some differences among age groups, as well: The survey is aimed at people across a wide range of ages. LabintheWild doesn’t usually exclude anyone, Reinecke added, but the difficult nature of the pandemic, and the scenarios presented in the survey, prompted researchers to design it to be of interest to participants from 14 years of age to adults well past retirement. The researchers wanted to design the questions to be interesting to a broad set of participants, because the pandemic affects everyone in society.

“We hope to look at responses according to the country of the participant and their age in order to learn how people are thinking about this once-in-a-lifetime event,” said Reinecke. “This will help us be better prepared if this comes around again. And one feature of the work that people find fun is that we have a chart at the end where people can compare their answers to those given by others around the world. Most people find this fascinating and informative.”

The study is funded by the UW, the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Reinecke at reinecke@cs.washington.edu, Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu or Meltzoff at meltzoff@uw.edu.

The choices we make in large group settings — such as in online forums and social media — might seem fairly automatic to us. But our decision-making process is more complicated than we know. So, researchers have been working to understand what’s behind that seemingly intuitive process.

Now, new 91̽�� research has discovered that in large groups of essentially anonymous members, people make choices based on a model of the “mind of the group” and an evolving simulation of how a choice will affect that theorized mind.

Using a mathematical framework with roots in artificial intelligence and robotics, 91̽��researchers were able to uncover the process for how a person makes choices in groups. And, they also found they were able to predict a person’s choice more often than more traditional descriptive methods. The Wednesday, Nov. 27, in Science Advances.

“Our results are particularly interesting in light of the increasing role of social media in dictating how humans behave as members of particular groups,” said senior author , the CJ and Elizabeth Hwang professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology.

“We can almost get a glimpse into a human mind and analyze its underlying computational mechanism for making collective decisions.”

“In online forums and social media groups, the combined actions of anonymous group members can influence your next action, and conversely, your own action can change the future behavior of the entire group,” Rao said.

The researchers wanted to find out what mechanisms are at play in settings like these.

In the paper, they explain that human behavior relies on predictions of future states of the environment — a best guess at what might happen — and the degree of uncertainty about that environment increases “drastically” in social settings. To predict what might happen when another human is involved, a person makes a model of the other’s mind, called a , and then uses that model to simulate how one’s own actions will affect that other “mind.”

While this act functions well for one-on-one interactions, the ability to model individual minds in a large group is much harder. The new research suggests that humans create an average model of a “mind” representative of the group even when the identities of the others are not known.

To investigate the complexities that arise in group decision-making, the researchers focused on the “volunteer’s dilemma task,” wherein a few individuals endure some costs to benefit the whole group. Examples of the task include guarding duty, blood donation and stepping forward to stop an act of violence in a public place, they explain in the paper.

To mimic this situation and study both behavioral and brain responses, the researchers put subjects in an MRI, one by one, and had them play a game. In the game, called a , the subject’s contribution to a communal pot of money influences others and determines what everyone in the group gets back. A subject can decide to contribute a dollar or decide to “free-ride” — that is, not contribute to get the reward in the hopes that others will contribute to the pot.

If the total contributions exceed a predetermined amount, everyone gets two dollars back. The subjects played dozens of rounds with others they never met. Unbeknownst to the subject, the others were actually simulated by a computer mimicking previous human players.

“We can almost get a glimpse into a human mind and analyze its underlying computational mechanism for making collective decisions,” said lead author , a doctoral student in the Allen School. “When interacting with a large number of people, we found that humans try to predict future group interactions based on a model of an average group member’s intention. Importantly, they also know that their own actions can influence the group. For example, they are aware that even though they are anonymous to others, their selfish behavior would decrease collaboration in the group in future interactions and possibly bring undesired outcomes.”

In their study, the researchers were able to assign mathematical variables to these actions and create their own computer models for predicting what decisions the person might make during play. They found that their model predicts human behavior significantly better than reinforcement learning models — that is, when a player learns to contribute based on how the previous round did or didn’t pay out regardless of other players — and more traditional descriptive approaches.

Given that the model provides a quantitative explanation for human behavior, Rao wondered if it may be useful when building machines that interact with humans.

“In scenarios where a machine or software is interacting with large groups of people, our results may hold some lessons for AI,” he said. “A machine that simulates the ‘mind of a group’ and simulates how its actions affect the group may lead to a more human-friendly AI whose behavior is better aligned with the values of humans.”

Co-authors include Seongmin A. Park, Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis and Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, France; Saghar Mirbagheri, Department of Psychology, New York University; Remi Philippe, Mariateresa Sestito and Jean-Claude Dreher at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod. This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, National Science Foundation, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

For more information, contact Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

Telepathic communication might be one step closer to reality thanks to new research from the 91̽��. A team created a method that allows three people to work together to solve a problem using only their minds.

In BrainNet, three people play a Tetris-like game using a brain-to-brain interface. This is the first demonstration of two things: a brain-to-brain network of more than two people, and a person being able to both receive and send information to others using only their brain. The team April 16 in the Nature journal , though this research previously attracted media attention after the researchers September to the preprint site .

“Humans are social beings who communicate with each other to cooperate and solve problems that none of us can solve on our own,” said corresponding author , the CJ and Elizabeth Hwang professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and a co-director of the . “We wanted to know if a group of people could collaborate using only their brains. That’s how we came up with the idea of BrainNet: where two people help a third person solve a task.”

As in Tetris, the game shows a block at the top of the screen and a line that needs to be completed at the bottom. Two people, the Senders, can see both the block and the line but can’t control the game. The third person, the Receiver, can see only the block but can tell the game whether to rotate the block to successfully complete the line. Each Sender decides whether the block needs to be rotated and then passes that information from their brain, through the internet and to the brain of the Receiver. Then the Receiver processes that information and sends a command — to rotate or not rotate the block — to the game directly from their brain, hopefully completing and clearing the line.

The team asked five groups of participants to play 16 rounds of the game. For each group, all three participants were in different rooms and couldn’t see, hear or speak to one another.

The Senders each could see the game displayed on a computer screen. The screen also showed the word “Yes” on one side and the word “No” on the other side. Beneath the “Yes” option, an LED flashed 17 times per second. Beneath the “No” option, an LED flashed 15 times a second.

“Once the Sender makes a decision about whether to rotate the block, they send ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the Receiver’s brain by concentrating on the corresponding light,” said first author , a student in the Allen School’s combined bachelor’s/master’s degree program.

The Senders wore electroencephalography caps that picked up electrical activity in their brains. The lights’ different flashing patterns trigger unique types of activity in the brain, which the caps can pick up. So, as the Senders stared at the light for their corresponding selection, the cap picked up those signals, and the computer provided real-time feedback by displaying a cursor on the screen that moved toward their desired choice. The selections were then translated into a “Yes” or “No” answer that could be sent over the internet to the Receiver.

“To deliver the message to the Receiver, we used a cable that ends with a wand that looks like a tiny racket behind the Receiver’s head. This coil stimulates the part of the brain that translates signals from the eyes,” said co-author , a 91̽��assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS. “We essentially ‘trick’ the neurons in the back of the brain to spread around the message that they have received signals from the eyes. Then participants have the sensation that bright arcs or objects suddenly appear in front of their eyes.”

If the answer was, “Yes, rotate the block,” then the Receiver would see the bright flash. If the answer was “No,” then the Receiver wouldn’t see anything. The Receiver received input from both Senders before making a decision about whether to rotate the block. Because the Receiver also wore an electroencephalography cap, they used the same method as the Senders to select yes or no.

The Senders got a chance to review the Receiver’s decision and send corrections if they disagreed. Then, once the Receiver sent a second decision, everyone in the group found out if they cleared the line. On average, each group successfully cleared the line 81% of the time, or for 13 out of 16 trials.

The researchers wanted to know if the Receiver would learn over time to trust one Sender over the other based on their reliability. The team purposely picked one of the Senders to be a “bad Sender” and flipped their responses in 10 out of the 16 trials — so that a “Yes, rotate the block” suggestion would be given to the Receiver as “No, don’t rotate the block,” and vice versa. Over time, the Receiver switched from being relatively neutral about both Senders to strongly preferring the information from the “good Sender.”

The team hopes that these results pave the way for future brain-to-brain interfaces that allow people to collaborate to solve tough problems that one brain alone couldn’t solve. The researchers also believe this is an appropriate time to start to have a larger conversation about the ethics of this kind of brain augmentation research and developing protocols to ensure that people’s privacy is respected as the technology improves. The group is working with the at the Center for Neurotechnology to address these types of issues.

“But for now, this is just a baby step. Our equipment is still expensive and very bulky and the task is a game,” Rao said. “We’re in the ‘Kitty Hawk’ days of brain interface technologies: We’re just getting off the ground.”

Co-authors include , a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University who completed this research as a 91̽��undergraduate in computer science and neurobiology; , a research assistant at I-LABS; and , an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and I-LABS. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, a W.M. Keck Foundation Award and a Levinson Emerging Scholars Award.

###

For more information, contact Jiang at prestonj@cs.washington.edu, Stocco at stocco@uw.edu or Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

Grant number: EEC-1028725

Recent notable books by 91̽�� faculty members study politics and culture in post-World War II Japan, explore regime change, nonprofit management, documents from the ancient world and more.

‘Japan in the American Century” explores postwar relations, current geopolitical changes

After the United States ended World War II by dropping atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it then conducted “the most intrusive international reconstruction of another nation in modern history,” according to a new book by , professor emeritus at the UW’s . Only now, amid geopolitical changes of the 21^st century, is Japan pulling free from American dominance and constraints placed on it after the war.

“,” published this month by Harvard University Press, examines how Japan, with its conservative heritage, responded to the imposition of a new liberal order. The book offers a thoughtful history of the now-changing relationship between the two nations.

“The price Japan paid to end the occupation was a Cold War alliance with the United States that ensured America’s dominance in the region,” Pyle writes. “Still traumatized by its wartime experience, Japan developed a grand strategy of dependence on U.S. security guarantees so that the nation could concentrate on economic growth.” Meanwhile, he adds, Japan “reworked the American reforms” to fit its own cultural and economic circumstances and social institutions.

Today that postwar world is in retreat, Pyle argues, and Japan is changing its foreign policy, “returning to an activist, independent role in global politics not seen since 1945” — and that has repercussion for its continuing relations with the U.S. and its role in Asian geopolitics.

The book distills a lifetime of work on Japan and the U.S. by Pyle, a former director of the Jackson School, who joined the 91̽��in 1964. “The American Century,” referring to global political, economic and cultural dominance by the United States, is a term famously coined by , publisher of , Time and Fortune magazines, in a Life editorial in 1941.

To learn more, contact kbp@uw.edu.

* * *

When authoritarianism becomes democracy: New boss, same as the old boss?

When authoritarian governments transition to democracy, sometimes those running the old system are the ones creating the new system — and design it to their own advantage. So argues 91̽��political scientist , co-author of the book “,” published this summer by Cambridge University Press. He wrote the book with of the University of Chicago.

“We examine … how does this process occur and what are the consequences?” Menaldo, associate professor of political science, said in an posted on the Political Science Department website. “Since World War 2, the outgoing authoritarian regime has drafted the new democratic constitution in over two-thirds of the countries that have made this transition.” Menaldo and Albertus studied such transitions globally across two centuries.

“There are many ways [for outgoing regimes] to do this,” Menaldo said. “One is to require a supermajority for future amendments to the constitution they have written. Others include barriers to voting, malapportionment, and giving veto power to unelected political bodies in which elites from the old guard are over-represented.”

Some of this may have a familiar ring to those interested in American history. Though the book is not about the United States, Menaldo said, the findings are consistent with a longstanding argument about the U.S. Constitution and its authors — that they were a small elite group who in writing the document partly protected their own interests.

“The United States continues to hold indirect elections for the presidency, and its federal system long protected subnational enclaves in which a majority of citizens in some states were deprived of basic rights,” Menaldo said.

To learn more, contact Menaldo at vmenaldo@uw.edu.

* * *
Principles, practices of American Indian business

American Indian business is booming overall in recent years, but not thriving as much on reservations, notes a new book co-edited by , associate professor in the 91̽��Bothell School of Business titled “.”

Despite healthy growth in American Indian and Alaska Native-owned businesses, they are largely absent from reservations “and Native Americans own private businesses at the lowest rate per capita for any ethnic or racial group in the United States,” say notes from the publisher, 91̽�� Press.

“Many Indigenous entrepreneurs face unique cultural and practical challenges in starting, locating, and operating a business, from a perceived lack of a culture of entrepreneurship and a suspicion of capitalism to the difficulty of borrowing startup funds when real estate is held in trust and cannot be used as collateral.”

The book discusses the history and state of such businesses as well as business practices and education. It ranges “from early trading posts to today’s casino boom.”

A review in praised the book as “so well done that it can be used by higher education institutions to acquaint students on how to better understand doing business in Indian Country.”

Kennedy, a member of the Cherokee Nation, edited the book with Charles F. Harrington of the University of South Carolina-Upstate, Amy Klemm Verbos of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Daniel Stewart of Gonzaga University, Joseph Scott-Gladstone of the University of New Haven and Gavin Clarkson of New Mexico State University.

To learn more, contact Kennedy at 425-352-5321 or deannak@uw.edu.

* * *

Evans School’s Mary Kay Gugerty honored for book on nonprofits management, ‘The Goldilocks Challenge’

,  professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been announced the recipient of the from the for her book, “ The book, which Gugerty wrote with of Northwestern University, was published this year by Oxford University Press.

The award “highlights the very best thinking in management, governance and capacity-building, and helps expose practitioners to new knowledge and approaches in the field,” according to the group’s website. Gugerty is the Nancy Bell Evans Professor of Nonprofit Management in the Evans School, and faculty director of the .

The book is about “measuring impact,” a statement from the reviewing committee says. “We all want to do it, know we have to do it … and are all too often frustrated by one-size-fits-all expectations of how to do it. ‘The Goldilocks Challenge’ offers a solution: an impact measurement framework that helps organizations decide what elements they should monitor and measure.” That framework is based on having data that is at once credible, actionable, responsible and transportable.

To learn more, contact Gugerty at 206-221-4599 or gugerty@uw.edu.

* * *

Rethinking post-World War II art, politics in Japan

In a new cultural history of post-World War II Japan, , 91̽��associate professor of Asian languages and literature, explores art and politics — and consolidations of political and cultural life — in the years leading to the Cold War. His new book “,” was published in September by Cornell University Press.

Jesty focuses on social realists on the radical left who, “hoped to wed their art with anti-capitalist and anti-war activism, a liberal art education movement whose focus on the child inspired innovation in documentary film, and a regional avant-garde group split between ambition and local loyalty.”

The book, Jesty writes, has the two main goals, the first being to reframe that history and its relevance to the present. The second is to show a way of studying the relationship between art and politics that views art as a mode of intervention “but insists artistic intervention move beyond the idea that the artwork of artist unilaterally authors political significance, to trace how creations and expressive acts may (or may not) actually engage the terms of shared meaning and value.”

To learn more, contact Jesty at jestyj@uw.edu or visit his .

* * *

Exploring India’s ‘political economy of electricity’

Electricity is critical to India’s continued growth and economic health, but despite decades of reform the country remains unable to provide high-quality and affordable energy for all. A new book co-edited by , an associate professor in the Jackson School, explores these issues. “” was published earlier this year by Oxford University Press.

The book tracks power sectors in 15 states in India, giving an analysis of their political economy of electricity. A historically grounded study of the country’s political economy, the book suggests, helps better understand the past and inform new reforms to “improve sectoral outcomes and generate political rewards.”

Kale’s co-editors were Navroz K. Dubash of India’s Centre for Policy Research and Ranjit Bharvirkar of the Regulatory Assistance Project, a multinational nonprofit organization. Kale is also director of the Jackson School’s South Asia Center and chair of its South Asia Studies Program.

To learn more, contact Kale at 206-221-4852 or kale@uw.edu

* * *

Book chapter by Rajesh Rao offers new view of ancient Indus script

, 91̽��professor in the , has written an article about the that will appear in the book “.” The Indus script, also known as the Harappan script, is one of the last major undeciphered scripts of the ancient world. The article can be downloaded .

The book celebrates the contributions to South Asian archaeology of , professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. Rao’s article, focusing on a set of miniature tablets discovered by Kenoyer in 1997, sets forth the “potentially provocative” conclusion that such stamps may have been used as a sort of currency in a barter-based economy.

“Walking with the Unicorn” will be published Oct. 30 by . Rao’s earlier work on the Indus script was described in 91̽��News articles in and of 2009. Rao is the of computer science and engineering and electrical engineering.

To learn more, contact Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

Building on seven years of research that helps patients with sensory and motor neurological disorders, the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering is updating its name to the (CNT). The CNT, which is based at the 91̽�� but includes researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, Caltech and other partners, changed its name to highlight the key role that neurotechnologies play in its mission.

“In the beginning, our mission was quite broad, ranging from developing virtual reality therapies for rehabilitation to creating anthropomorphic robotic hands for amputees,” said , co-director of the CNT and a professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “Over the years, we have narrowed our focus to maximize our impact in an area in which we are acknowledged as leaders in the field: developing neurotechnologies that can electrically record and stimulate the brain and spinal cord to repair damaged neural circuits.”

Rao and co-director wanted the center’s name to reflect this shift.

“Our team has pioneered the concept of engineered neuroplasticity, the idea that we can use electronic devices to guide the nervous system to rewire and heal after injury,” said Moritz, who is an associate professor with joint appointments in UW’s electrical engineering department and 91̽��Medicine’s rehabilitation medicine and physiology & biophysics departments.

The name change comes as the National Science Foundation announced Aug. 31 that it will renew the center’s funding, promising up to $8.4 million over the next three years.

Since 2011, the CNT has received $27 million from the NSF and has made significant research advances in the field of engineering neuroplasticity, developed educational tools about neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces, and become a leader in the field of neuroethics.

“As we build devices that directly interact with the brain, and even change the wiring of the nervous system, it is critical that we address the ethical implications of our work at the earliest stages of design and implementation,” Moritz said.

Looking to the future, both co-directors are excited to see how the neurotechnologies the CNT develops will help patients with a variety of neurological conditions regain lost functions.

“We are proud of the vibrant multidisciplinary community of collaborating students and researchers that the center has created over the past seven years,” said Rao, who is the of computer science & engineering and electrical engineering. “I doubt if there is any other center in the world where you will find philosophy students embedded in engineering labs asking important neuroethics questions on a project that also involves neurosurgeons and industry partners.”

Scroll down to see more of the CNT’s accomplishments:

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For more information, contact Moritz at ctmoritz@uw.edu and Rao at rpnr@uw.edu.

In the Matrix film series, Keanu Reeves plugs his brain directly into a virtual world that sentient machines have designed to enslave mankind.

The Matrix plot may be dystopian fantasy, but 91̽�� researchers have taken a first step in showing how humans can interact with virtual realities via direct brain stimulation.

In a published online Nov. 16 in , they describe the first demonstration of humans playing a simple, two-dimensional computer game using only input from direct brain stimulation — without relying on any usual sensory cues from sight, hearing or touch.

The subjects had to navigate 21 different mazes, with two choices to move forward or down based on whether they sensed a visual stimulation artifact called a , which are perceived as blobs or bars of light. To signal which direction to move, the researchers generated a phosphene through , a well-known technique that uses a magnetic coil placed near the skull to directly and noninvasively stimulate a specific area of the brain.

“The way virtual reality is done these days is through displays, headsets and goggles, but ultimately your brain is what creates your reality,” said senior author , 91̽��professor of and director of the

“The fundamental question we wanted to answer was: Can the brain make use of artificial information that it’s never seen before that is delivered directly to the brain to navigate a virtual world or do useful tasks without other sensory input? And the answer is yes.”

The five test subjects made the right moves in the mazes 92 percent of the time when they received the input via direct brain stimulation, compared to 15 percent of the time when they lacked that guidance.

The simple game demonstrates one way that novel information from artificial sensors or computer-generated virtual worlds can be successfully encoded and delivered noninvasively to the human brain to solve useful tasks. It employs a technology commonly used in neuroscience to study how the brain works — transcranial magnetic stimulation — to instead convey actionable information to the brain.

The test subjects also got better at the navigation task over time, suggesting that they were able to learn to better detect the artificial stimuli.

“We’re essentially trying to give humans a sixth sense,” said lead author , a 2016 91̽��graduate in computer science and neurobiology who now works as a staff researcher for the .  “So much effort in this field of neural engineering has focused on decoding information from the brain. We’re interested in how you can encode information into the brain.”

The initial experiment used binary information — whether a phosphene was present or not — to let the game players know whether there was an obstacle in front of them in the maze. In the real world, even that type of simple input could help blind or visually impaired individuals navigate.

Theoretically, any of a variety of sensors on a person’s body — from cameras to infrared, ultrasound, or laser rangefinders — could convey information about what is surrounding or approaching the person in the real world to a direct brain stimulator that gives that person useful input to guide their actions.

“The technology is not there yet — the tool we use to stimulate the brain is a bulky piece of equipment that you wouldn’t carry around with you,” said co-author , a 91̽��assistant professor of psychology and I-LABS research scientist. “But eventually we might be able to replace the hardware with something that’s amenable to real world applications.”

Together with other partners from outside UW, members of the research team have co-founded , a startup company aimed at commercializing their ideas and introducing neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques that could make virtual-reality, gaming and other applications better and more engaging.

The team is currently investigating how altering the intensity and location of direct brain stimulation can create more complex visual and other sensory perceptions which are currently difficult to replicate in augmented or virtual reality.

“We look at this as a very small step toward the grander vision of providing rich sensory input to the brain directly and noninvasively,” said Rao. “Over the long term, this could have profound implications for assisting people with sensory deficits while also paving the way for more realistic virtual reality experiences.”

The research was funded by the W.M. Keck Foundation and the Washington Research Foundation.

Co-authors include I-LABS research coordinator .

For more information, contact Losey at loseydm@uw.edu, Stocco at stocco@uw.edu or Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu.

In the quest to , researchers have focused on getting brain signals to disconnected nerves and muscles that no longer receive messages that would spur them to move.

But grasping a cup or brushing hair or cooking a meal requires other feedback that has been lost in amputees and individuals with paralysis — a sense of touch. The brain needs information from a fingertip or limb or external device to understand how firmly a person is gripping or how much pressure is needed to perform everyday tasks.

Now, 91̽�� researchers at the National Science Foundation (CSNE) have used direct stimulation of the human brain surface to provide basic sensory feedback through artificial electrical signals, enabling a patient to control movement while performing a simple task: opening and closing his hand.

It’s a first step towards developing “closed loop,” bi-directional brain-computer interfaces () that enable two-way communication between parts of the nervous system. They would also allow the brain to directly control external prosthetics or other devices that can enhance movement — or even reanimate a paralyzed limb — while getting sensory feedback.

The results of this research will be published in the Oct.-Dec. 2016 issue of . An early-access version of the paper is .

“We were able to provide a baseline degree of sensory feedback by direct cortical stimulation of the brain,” said lead author and 91̽��bioengineering doctoral student . “To our knowledge this is the first time it’s been done in a human patient who was awake and performing a motor task that depended on that feedback.”

The team of bioengineers, computer scientists and medical researchers from the and UW’s used electrical signals of different current intensities, dictated by the position of the patient’s hand measured by a glove he wore, to stimulate the patient’s brain that had been implanted with electrocorticographic (ECoG) electrodes. The patient then used those artificial signals delivered to the brain to “sense” how the researchers wanted him to move his hand.

“The question is: Can humans use novel electrical sensations that they’ve never felt before, perceive them at different levels and use this to do a task? And the answer seems to be yes,” said co-author and 91̽��bioengineering doctoral student . “Whether this type of sensation can be as diverse as the textures and feelings that we can sense tactilely is an open question.”

They would also allow the brain to directly control external prosthetics or other devices that can enhance movement — or even reanimate a paralyzed limb — while getting sensory feedback.

It’s difficult for a person to mimic natural movements — whether using a prosthetic device or a limb that has become disconnected from the brain by neurological injury — without sensation. Though there are devices to assist patients with paralysis or who have undergone amputations with basic function, being able to feel again ranks highly on their priorities, researchers said.

Restoring this sensory feedback requires developing an “artificial” language of electrical signals that the brain can interpret as sensation and incorporate as useful feedback when performing a task.

The 91̽��CSNE team frequently works with patients about to undergo epilepsy surgery who have recently had an ECoG electrode grid implanted on the surface of their brain. For several days or weeks, doctors constantly monitor their brain activity to pinpoint the origin of their seizures before operating.

By consenting to participate in research studies during this period when their brain is “wired,” these patients enable researchers to answer basic neurological questions. They can test which parts of the brain are activated during different behaviors, what happens when a certain region of the brain’s cortex is stimulated and even how to induce brain plasticity to promote rehabilitation and healing across damaged areas.

The potential to use ECoG electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain in future prosthetic or rehabilitative applications offers several advantages — the signals are stronger and more accurate than sensors placed on the scalp, but less invasive than ones that penetrate the brain, as in a by University of Pittsburgh researchers.

In the 91̽��study, three patients wore a glove embedded with sensors that provided data about where their fingers and joints were positioned. They were asked to stay within a target position somewhere between having their hands open and closed without being able to see what that target position was. The only feedback they received about the target hand position was artificial electrical data delivered by the research team.

When their hands opened too far, they received no electrical stimulus to the brain. When their hand was too closed – similar to squeezing something too hard – the electrical stimuli was provided at a higher intensity.

One patient was able to achieve accuracies in reaching the target position well above chance when receiving the electrical feedback. Performance dropped when the patient received random signals regardless of hand position, suggesting that the subject had been using the artificial sensory feedback to control hand movement.

Providing that artificial sensory feedback in a way that the brain can understand is key to that could restore a sense of position, touch or feeling in patients where that connection has been severed.

“Right now we’re using very primitive kinds of codes where we’re changing only frequency or intensity of the stimulation, but eventually it might be more like a symphony,” said co-author , CSNE director and 91̽��professor of computer science & engineering.

“That’s what you’d need to do to have a very natural grip for tasks such as preparing a dish in the kitchen. When you want to pick up the salt shaker and all your ingredients, you need to exert just the right amount of pressure. Any day-to-day task like opening a cupboard or lifting a plate or breaking an egg requires this complex sensory feedback.”

Co-authors include CSNE members of the 91̽��Department of Bioengineering; Drs. and of the Department of Neurological Surgery at 91̽��Medicine, and Dr. , formerly in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at 91̽��Medicine.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the Washington Research Foundation.

For more information, contact Jeneva Cronin at jcronin@uw.edu or Rajesh Rao at rpnr@uw.edu.

In the next decade, people who have suffered a spinal cord injury or stroke could have their mobility improved or even restored through a radically new technology: implantable devices that can send signals between regions of the brain or nervous system that have been disconnected due to injury.

That’s the mission driving the , a 91̽��-led effort that includes researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, San Diego State University and other partners.

To support development of this much-needed technology, the National Science Foundation recently renewed the center’s funding. It has awarded $16 million over the next four years to support research on implantable devices that promote brain plasticity and reanimate paralyzed limbs.

“There’s a huge unmet need, especially with an aging population of baby boomers, for developing the next generation of medical devices for helping people with progressive or traumatic neurological conditions such as stroke and spinal cord injury,” said CSNE director and 91̽��professor of computer science and engineering .

The goal is to achieve proof-of-concept demonstrations in humans within the next five years, Rao said. This will lay the groundwork for eventual clinical devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration, in collaboration with the center’s industry partners.

CSNE was founded in 2011 with an $18.5 million NSF grant. Since then, its of neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, neurosurgeons, and has led the way in developing “bi-directional” implantable devices that can both pick up brain signals and send information to other parts of the nervous system.

The devices record and decode electrical signals generated by the brain when a person forms an intention, for example, to move a hand to pick up a cup. The devices are also able to wirelessly transmit that information, essentially creating a new artificial pathway around damaged areas of the brain or nervous system.

“When Christopher Reeve sustained a spinal cord injury due to a fall from his horse, his brain circuits were still intact and able to form the intention to move, but unfortunately the injury prevented that intention from being conveyed to the spinal cord,” Rao said.

“Our implantable devices aim to bridge such lost connections by decoding brain signals and stimulating the appropriate part of the spinal cord to enable the person to move again,” he said.

The same technology could also be used to promote plasticity for targeted rehabilitation in stroke and spinal cord injury patients — essentially reconnecting brain or spinal regions and helping the nervous system repair and rewire itself.

CSNE is also working on improving today’s implantable technologies, such as deep brain stimulators used to treat Parkinson’s disease and tremors. These typically deliver electric pulses to the brain at an appropriate frequency that’s adjusted by a physician to achieve the desired effect.

But this means that the brain is constantly bombarded by electrical pulses even when a person is resting and the pulses aren’t needed. This can lead to unwanted side effects and drain the implantable device’s battery, leading to more frequent replacement surgeries.

By contrast, CSNE researchers and industry partners are working on a next generation of that monitor the brain and deliver targeted electrical stimulation only when it’s needed.

“This funding renewal for CSNE will allow us to advance the frontiers in closed-loop neural interfaces,” said CSNE deputy director , a 91̽��associate professor of rehabilitation medicine and of physiology & biophysics. “We have a fantastic team of engineers and neuroscientists working closely together, and continued NSF support is critical to achieving these ambitious goals.”

The NSF funding will also enable the center to expand its already popular for K-12 students, school teachers, undergraduates and veterans to other partner institutions. The 91̽��is additionally launching an undergraduate minor and graduate certificate program in neural engineering next year.

Other CSNE collaborators include Spelman College, Morehouse College, Southwestern College, the University of British Columbia, the University of Freiburg and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

For more information, contact Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu or Moritz at ctmoritz@uw.edu.