Social Robotics: The Future of Human-Robot Interaction

1.Inferring Human Personality Traits in Human-Robot Social Interaction:

Published in: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 11-14 March 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 25 March 2019
DOI: 10.1109/HRI.2019.8673124
Publisher: IEEE

This paper suggests a new way for robots to figure out a person's personality traits by watching how they act during
conversations. The robot pays attention to things like where the person looks, how they move their head and body, and
the sound of their voice, like how high or low it is. During the conversation, the robot asks the person some questions, and
they answer however they normally would. Afterward, the person fills out a questionnaire about their personality. Then, all
this information is used to teach the robot how to guess someone's personality traits using a computer program.

2. IVO Robot: A New Social Robot for Human-Robot Collaboration:

Published in: 2022 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 07-10 March 2022
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 29 September 2022
DOI: 10.1109/HRI53351.2022.9889458

We present a new social robot named IVO, a robot capable of collaborating with humans and solving different tasks. The
robot is intended to cooperate and work with humans in a useful and socially acceptable manner to serve as a research
platform for long-term Social Human-Robot Interaction. In this paper, we proceed to describe this new platform, its
communication skills and the current capabilities the robot possesses, such as, handing over an object to or from a person
or performing guiding tasks with a human through physical contact. We describe the social abilities of the IVO robot,
furthermore, we present the experiments performed for each robot's capacity using its current version.

3. What's Social about Social Robots? A Psychological Perspective:

Published in: 2022 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 07-10 March 2022
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 29 September 2022
DOI: 10.1109/HRI53351.2022.9889612
Publisher: IEEE

This presentation discusses how robots can be seen as social beings and what factors influence people's views of robots
as social entities. It draws from research conducted at Bielefeld University's Applied Social Psychology Lab. The speaker
shares their personal journey in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and provides a psychological perspective on
social robotics and HRI developments. They explore how design choices, like giving robots indicators of group
membership, affect how people perceive them. Additionally, they discuss the importance of understanding and possibly
changing user attitudes towards robots to increase acceptance of new technologies. The presentation concludes by
highlighting key lessons learned, including considerations of the social and ethical impacts of HRI research.

4. Robots for Social Good: Exploring Critical Design for HRI:

Published in: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 11-14 March 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 25 March 2019
DOI: 10.1109/HRI.2019.8673130
Publisher: IEEE

Robots are being increasingly developed as social actors, entering public and personal spaces such as airports, shopping
malls, care centres, and even homes, and using human or animal-like social techniques to work with people. Some even
aim to engineer social situations, or are designed specifically for an emotional response (e.g., comforting a person).
However, if we consider these robots as social interventions, then it is important to recognize that the robots design - its
behaviour, its application, its appearance, even its marketing image - will have an impact on the society and in the spaces
it enters. While in some cases this may be a positive effect, social robots can also contribute negatively, e.g., reinforcing
gender stereotypes or promoting ageist views. This full-day workshop aims
to offer a forum for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) researchers to explore this issue, and to work toward potential
opportunities for the field. Ultimately, we want to promote robots for social good that can contribute to positive social
changes for socio-political issues (e.g., ageism, feminism, homelessness, environmental issues). The political aspects of
technologies have long been scrutinized in related areas such as Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Human-
Computer Interaction (HCI). In particular, critical design explicitly targets the design of technologies that can contribute to
our understanding of how technology can impact society. This workshop aims to strengthen this discussion in the HRI
community, with the goal of working toward initial recommendations for how HRI designers can include elements of critical
design in their work.

5. Social Robots in Therapy and Care:

Published in: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 11-14 March 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 25 March 2019
DOI: 10.1109/HRI.2019.8673243
Publisher: IEEE

This workshop series is all about exploring how robots can be used to help people in social care and therapy. It's a big
deal because using robots in these areas could really improve patients' lives. But there are lots of challenges, like making
sure the robots can work closely with patients and therapists, understanding what patients really need, and figuring out
the best way for robots to interact with people. There are also ethical questions to think about, especially when working
with vulnerable populations. Last year's workshop focused on how robots can make healthcare better, how giving robots
more independence might change therapy, and how to deal with ethical issues. This year, the workshop will look at how
important it is for robots to understand emotions and have meaningful interactions with people. It's a chance for
researchers and industry experts in areas like Human-Robot Interaction and Machine Learning to come together, share
ideas, and figure out how to make robot-assisted therapy and social care as personal, natural, and helpful as possible for
patients and healthcare providers.

6. Embodied Affect for Real-World Human-Robot Interaction:

Published in: 2020 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
Date of Conference: 23-26 March 2020
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 21 July 2021
Electronic ISBN:978-1-4503-6746-2
Publisher: IEEE

This talk discusses how robots can truly become helpful in our daily lives, despite facing many challenges in dealing with
the complexity of the real world. The speaker focuses on the concept of Embodied Artificial Intelligence (Embodied AI),
which emphasizes robots' ability to interact autonomously with the world around them. They highlight examples from their
own research, such as using robots in developmental robotics, healthcare, and computational psychiatry. Embodied AI,
which sees intelligence as stemming from interaction with the environment, is seen as crucial for making human-robot
interaction more effective and practical in real-world settings.

7. Human Robot Interaction: Identifying Resembling Emotions Using Dynamic Body Gestures of Robot:

Published in: 2023 3rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ICAI)

Date of Conference: 22-23 February 2023
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 01 June 2023
DOI: 10.1109/ICAI58407.2023.10136649
Publisher: IEEE

This research explores how a robot can express emotions using full-body gestures instead of just facial expressions. The
robot's head, torso, legs, and arms are used to convey 28 different emotions, focusing on variations in movement speed,
frequency, and joint angles. The study involved 33 participants who had to identify the emotions displayed by the robot
through its body gestures. On average, participants accurately recognized the robot's emotions 79.69% of the time. The
results show that people rely heavily on the robot's body movements and postures to understand its emotions, suggesting
that this approach can effectively convey a wide range of emotions.
8. Studying Worker Perceptions on Safety, Autonomy, and Job Security in Human-Robot Collaboration:
Published in: 2023 9th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA)
Date of Conference: 10-12 February 2023
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 23 May 2023
DOI: 10.1109/ICARA56516.2023.10125842
Publisher: IEEE

This study looks into how workers feel about working with robots in collaborative environments. Blue-collar workers,
especially, are worried about losing their jobs to robots. However, our research finds that workers see some benefits to
having robots around, especially if the robots assist them instead of taking over completely. We surveyed 530 workers in
various industries across four countries. We found that workers prefer robots that offer help when needed, rather than
always being involved or staying out of the way completely. This approach is seen as better for preserving job security
and autonomy. Interestingly, female and older workers tend to have a more positive view of robots that provide assistance
as needed, which could help make workplaces more inclusive and ease concerns about job displacement .

9. User Experience for Social Human-Robot Interactions:

Published in: 2019 Amity International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AICAI)
Date of Conference: 04-06 February 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 29 April 2019
DOI: 10.1109/AICAI.2019.8701332
Publisher: IEEE

A significant threat social robots often faces is that their integration in real social, human environments will
dehumanise some of the roles currently being played by the humans. This perception implicitly overestimates
the social skills of the robots, which despite being continually upgraded, are still far from being able to dominate
humans entirely. It also reflects loosely fears that robots may overcome humans in the near future and impact
on the need to employ humans. This paper aims to address the role and relevance of user experience of
socially interactive robots, separating several issues related to the evaluation of social human-robot interaction
and then more specifically how this should be considered in developing countries where socially interactive
robots are viewed with resistance and apprehension.

10. Social Robots as Cyber-Physical Actors in Entertainment and Education:

Published in: 2019 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM)
Date of Conference: 19-21 September 2019
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 21 November 2019
ISBN Information:
Electronic ISSN: 1847-358X
DOI: 10.23919/SOFTCOM.2019.8903630
Publisher: IEEE

For a number of years robots have been widely used in industry mainly for assembly tasks and other automated processes.
Advances in robot hardware and software have significantly improved the capabilities of robots and have led researchers
to investigate the potential uses of robots in other fields where more autonomy, intelligence and higher levels of interaction
with humans are required. Two of these fields are education and entertainment. As robotic platforms have become more
accessible and more affordable not only to researchers but also for the general public, social robots are increasingly being
introduced in the classroom and the theater for educational and entertainment purposes respectively. The present paper
is a short survey on the use of social robots as theatrical actors, and presents an outline of the authors' preliminary work
on this field, aiming at employing this approach in special education.