BAILAR 2022

The Workshop BAILAR (Behavior Adaptation and Learning for Assistive Robotics) will be held the 29th of August

in conjunction with the 31st International Conference on Robots & Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN 2022),

29th of August-2nd of September, 2022, Naples (Italy).

SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT and OBJECTIVES

Mutual affective understanding is integral for achieving the so called Theory of Mind (ToM) allowing successful, acceptable and intelligent social human-robot interaction (HRI).

Corresponding concepts rely on new paradigms of robotic control systems that consider not only the possibility for a robot to interpret humans’ observable behaviors and internal/emotional states with the aim of anticipating and adapting to their subsequent reactions, but also to facilitate humans in the interpretation and anticipation of the robot’s state, intentions, and future actions through legible behavior designed around the emotional dimension of the communication.

In addition to being able to detect and interpret humans' basic affective responses so as to adapt their behavior accordingly, robots should also be endowed with the ability to show affective and social responses in a legible way for humans to allow acceptability and efficient human-machine communication. This is especially desirable in the field of Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR), where interaction often takes place with disabled or vulnerable people. Especially in this period of worldwide pandemic, an increasing number of hospitals have relied on the assistance of social robots to interact with patients as helping interfaces for remote communication with their families. Moreover, robots can help decrease the workload and physical contact of healthcare specialists, which would be beneficial to overcome the situations where elderly or vulnerable people are at risk of getting infected. The need to ensure the positive feelings and acceptance of people, while providing them with the necessary assistance, has outlined the utility of intelligent and empathic socially assistive robots. In these contexts, it is of paramount importance to consider the effect of verbal and non-verbal emotional social cues of the robot on the affective state of the user with whom it is interacting. On the one hand, a robot can be employed to provide assistance to individuals with disability (e.g., cognitive or physical rehabilitation exercises) with the aim of increasing their health and improving their quality of life. On the other hand, its presence and actions could also potentially trigger negative emotions such as stress or discomfort if not tailored to the particular individual’s needs and expectations. This may cause serious difficulties by negatively impacting the users' health and, in turn, achieving a counter-productive result. In this context, robots could use the affect-sensing capability to learn and adapt their behavior to be more comfortable for individuals and to achieve a higher degree of learnability and acceptability through inclusive interaction.

This edition of BAILAR Workshop aims at putting the mutual understanding of affective/emotional states of robots and humans at the crossroads with learning and user adaptation within HRI. Methodologies and technologies adopted for detecting and adapting to users’ mental states, emotions and dispositions during HRI will be presented and discussed. Experimental protocols and results could also outline possible effects of gender, age, personality and pathology on robot perception from an emotional and affective point of view, as well as ethical considerations regarding learning and using personal data within assistive applications.

Target Audience

This workshop is intended as a forum for a broad audience, composed of roboticists, psychologists, computer scientists, social and ethics scientists, aiming at discussing the role of adaptation, learning, emotional communication, and mutual affective understanding in HRI for assistive real-world applications, and their potential impact on users’ acceptance, especially in terms of usability, efficiency, empathy and their emotional responses. discussion on robotics

We especially encourage the submissions of works and applications dealing with robotic assistance of mentally and physically impaired users, aiming at maximizing the adoption of social robots in society. We foster and encourage the participation of under-represented communities.

Special Issues (NEW):

1) We are pleased to invite you to contribute a paper, comprehensive review or original paper, to our Special Issue "Social Robots for the Human Well-Being" in /Robotics/.

• Special Issue Website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/SRHWB

• *Guest Editors*: Mariacarla Staffa, Filippo Cavallo and Martin Cooney

• Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2022

2) At present, less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women. Long-standing biases and gender stereotypes are discouraging girls and women away from science-related fields, and STEM research in particular. Science and gender equality are, however, essential to ensure sustainable development as highlighted by UNESCO. In order to change traditional mindsets, gender equality must be promoted, stereotypes defeated, and girls and women should be encouraged to pursue STEM careers. Therefore, Frontiers in Neurorobotics is proud to launch the Research Topic “Women in Neurorobotics”

• Special Issue Website: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/35518/women-in-neurorobotics

• *Guest Editors*: Mariacarla Staffa, Jiyeon Kang, and Silvia Tolu

• Deadline for manuscript submissions: 16 December 2022

NEWS

• Prof. Hatice Gunes University of Cambridge (UK) has been confirmed as an invited speaker.

• Prof. Tom Ziemke Linköping University (Sweden) has been confirmed as an invited speaker.

• Prof. Antonio Sgorbissa University of Genova (Italy) has been confirmed as an invited speaker.

• The Workshop will be held on the 29th of August, 2022 (Royal Continental Hotel and Congress Center (Naples), room Sveva, from 14:00 to 18:00 CEST).