ASIMOV 2022

ASIMOV - Adaptive Social Interaction based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI - will be held on the 13th of December in conjunction with the 14th International Conference on Social Robotics

13-16 December 2022, Florence (Italy).

abstract

The ability of understanding and adapting to people’s mental models is a key objective for enabling natural, efficient and successful human-robot interaction (HRI), in particular in human-centered scenarios where robots are expected to meet people’s social conventions. However, even if theory of mind and mental models are largely investigated in human-computer interactions, it is still unclear what level of others’ mental states a robot should be aware of in order to communicate with people in a transparent and socially acceptable way. The ASIMOV workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to gather roboticists and computer scientists to discuss a variety of current and new approaches aiming at endowing social robots with learning abilities, enhancing cognitive and social abilities based on mutual understanding, mental model and Theory of Mind.

SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT

Endowing robots with learning and online adaptation abilities is a key objective for enabling natural and efficient human-robot interaction, especially in the areas of assistive, rehabilitation, and educational robotics. As Isaac Asimov, the famous Russian-American science-fiction writer, pointed out in one of his novels “The Complete Robot (1982)”, it is fundamental for humans and robots to adapt to each other in order to have a successful and efficient interaction. To this extent, one of the critical challenges in human-robot interaction is to design robots with learning abilities which would enable them to behave according to the following three criteria: efficiency, acceptability and security. In order for robots to fulfill these criteria, it is necessary for the robot and the human to understand each other’s intentions, beliefs and desires.

The ability to interpret and adapt to users’ behavior and mental states could help in solving the mismatch existing between expectations of robots (often elicited by the robot’s appearance) and their actual capabilities and, therefore, enhance efficiency. Indeed, a possible mismatch can lead to ambiguous perceptions and improper interpretation of robot’s actions and intentions by negatively affecting the interactions. Therefore, designing human-aware social interaction paradigms allow robots to automatically detect and correct inaccurate mental states held by users through adaptive behavior.

Additionally, recent research evidence that that robots’ acceptability increases when the robot is able to understand and meet people’s expectations (i.e., their mental models) during HRI. By giving basic socio-cognitive skills to robots, they can show contextually appropriate affective and social signals in an intelligent and readable way. From the mutual comprehension of mental states, an effective human-robot interaction can emerge, suspending the disbelief of human partners, allowing trust, partnership, and acceptability.

Despite the recognized potential and usefulness of social robots for assistive, educational and entertainment purposes, people are still wary while interacting with them. In particular, their hesitations are connected to different aspects of HRI, including ethical and psychological concerns, and physical and security safety, such as privacy violation, physical harms, etc.. In this direction, it is essential to take into consideration the psychological and behavioural response of people who are sharing the environments with robots, and design social robots’ behaviors that can proactively plan, manage and execute its goals, and easy the interaction at the same time.

In tackling the above-mentioned challenges, this workshop aims to bring together theories and practices that advance social cognition and user awareness in HRI to enrich the mutual understanding between humans and the robots. This is especially desirable for socially assistive robots in the context of education, entertainment and especially in healthcare, where the target user groups often include vulnerable people (e.g., elderly people or children with diseases compromising attentional or emotional responses) and acceptability of the robots is of paramount importance.

OBJECTIVES

The workshop’s topics will be approached from a multidisciplinary perspective by inviting speakers with various expertise, including human-agent interaction, social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioral sciences, artificial intelligence, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. Specific attention will be given to the state-of-the-art methods in user modeling through evaluation of overt (e.g. behavior and speech) and covert information (e.g. cognitive states and emotional reactions) using tools such as motion capture, eye-tracking, biosignals, etc.

Target Audience

This workshop is intended as a forum for a broad audience, which spans from social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioral robotics, and social awareness and explainability in HRI. The workshop should be a place to exchange opinions, to discuss innovative ideas and to get hints and suggestions on ongoing research, therefore contributing to tackle unresolved issues. The proposed topic brings together researchers working on user behavior and intention detection, human-robot interaction, social and assistive robotics, control interfaces, learning, and ethical and safety issues in human-machine interaction, among others. A large scientific community is involved in such research fields.

LIST OF TOPICS

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Mental models in HRI

• Human-aware perception-action loop

• Emotion and intention recognition

• Empathy and Theory of Mind in Robotics

• Mutual affective understanding

• Real-time monitoring of behavior and mental states

• Detection of non-verbal behavioral cues

• Online adaptive behavior

• Acceptability and personalization

• Physiological monitoring and biofeedback systems

• BCI (brain-computer interfaces)-enabled adaptive interaction

• Short- and Long-term personalisation

• Human partnership and trust in HRI

• Security and safety in HRI

news

• Prof. Giulio Sandini Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy) has been confirmed as an invited speaker. The title of the talk will be announced soon.

• Dr. Barbara Bruno EPFL (Swizzerland) has been confirmed as an invited speaker. The title of the talk will be announced soon.

• Selected papers will be invited to submit an extended/revised version of the papers to the Special Issue "Social Robots for the Human Well-Being" on the mdpi Robotics Journal (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/SRHWB) (Author Benefits: Open Access:— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions. High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, ESCI (Web of Science), dblp, Inspec, and other databases. Journal Rank: CiteScore - Q1 (Control and Optimization)).

• The Workshop will be held on 13th December 2022 from 14:00 to 18:00 CET within the Plenary Room of the Chambre of commerce (Address: Piazza Mentana 1-2, 50122 Firenze, Italy)

• Visit the main conference Website for additional details on venue (https://www.icsr2022.it/venue/) and registration (https://icsr2022.mcrconference.it/).