Call for Papers
Fifth International Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction
A two-day symposium at AISB 2016, 5th – 6th April 2016, Sheffield, United Kingdom
http://www.mahasalem.net/AISB2016/HRI-AISB2016-Symposium.html
Submission Deadline: Monday, 11 January 2016
MOTIVATION
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing research field with many application areas that could have a big impact not only economically, but also on the way we live and the kind of relationships we may develop with machines. Due to its interdisciplinary nature different views and approaches towards HRI need to be nurtured.
The first symposium on “New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction” was held as part of AISB 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland; the second symposium was run in conjunction with AISB 2010 in Leicester, England; the third symposium took place during AISB 2014 at Goldsmiths, University of London, England; the fourth symposium was hosted by AISB 2015 in Kent, England. These four previously organised symposia were characterised by excellent presentations as well as extensive and constructive discussions of the research among the participants. Inspired by the great success of the preceding events and the rapidly evolving field of HRI, the continuation of the symposium series aims to provide a platform to present and discuss collaboratively recent findings and challenges in HRI.
Different categories of submissions are encouraged that reflect the different types of research studies that are being carried out. The symposium will encourage a diversity of views on HRI and different approaches taken. In the highly interdisciplinary research field of HRI, a peaceful dialogue among such approaches is expected to contribute to the synthesis of a body of knowledge that may help HRI sustaining its creative inertia that has drawn to HRI during the past 15 years many researchers from HCI, robotics, psychology, the social sciences, and other fields.
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission Deadline: Monday, 11 January 2016
Author Notification: Monday, 8 February 2016
Camera-Ready Deadline: Monday, 29 February 2016
Symposium Dates: 5th – 6th April 2016
SUBMISSION TOPICS:
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
Robot Companions:
- Robots as helpers in the home
- Robots as personal assistants and trainers
- Robots in collaborative scenarios
- Robots as autonomous companions
- Robots in schools and in other educational environments
- Creating relationships with robots
Robots in personal care and healthcare:
- Assistive technology
- Robot-assisted therapy
- Robots for rehabilitation
Human-centered robot design:
- Human-aware robot perception
- User needs and requirements for HRI
- User experience in HRI
- Sustaining the engagement of users
- Robot and human personality
- Personalising robots
Learning in HRI:
- Robots that learn socially and adapt to people
- Human-robot teaching
- Developmental robotics
Sensors and interfaces for HRI:
- Embodied interfaces for smart homes
- Customisable HRI interfaces
- Multimodal sensor fusion
Expressiveness in robots:
- Dialogue and multimodal human-robot interaction
- Nonverbal expressiveness
- Social signal processing
Architectures for socially intelligent robots:
- Cognitive Architectures
- Behaviour Planning and Execution
Empirical studies:
- Ethnography and field studies in naturalistic environments
- Long-term or repeated interaction with robots
- New methods and methodologies to carry out and analyse human-robot interaction
- Cross-cultural studies
Natural interaction with social robots (euRobotics Topic Group submissions):
- Levels of social abilities
- Benchmarking of social abilities
- Multimodal interaction and communication
- Visionary proposals for future applications/ research
Robot safety and trust
Robots as remote-controlled tools
Robots in search and rescue
Social and ethical aspects of HRI
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES:
The symposium encourages submissions in any of the following categories:
*N* Novel research findings resulting from completed empirical studies
In this category we encourage submissions where a substantial body of findings has been accumulated based on precise research questions or hypotheses. Such studies are expected to fit within a particular experimental framework (e.g. using qualitative or quantitative evaluation techniques) and the reviewing of such papers will apply relevant (statistical and other) criteria accordingly. Findings of such studies should provide novel insights into human-robot interaction studies.
*E* Exploratory studies
Exploratory studies are often necessary to pilot and fine-tune the methodological approach, procedures and measures. In a young research field such as HRI with novel applications and various robotic platforms, exploratory studies are also often required to derive a set of concrete research questions or hypothesis, in particular concerning issues where there is little related theoretical and experimental work. Although care must be taken in the interpretation of findings from such studies, they may highlight issues of great interest and relevance to peers.
*S* Case studies
Due to the nature of many HRI studies, a large-scale quantitative approach is sometimes neither feasible nor desirable. However, case study evaluation can provide meaningful findings if presented appropriately. Thus, case studies with only one participant, or a small group of participants, are encouraged if they are carried out and analysed in sufficient depth.
*P* Position papers
While categories N, E and S require reporting on HRI studies or experiments, position papers can be conceptual or theoretical, providing new interpretations of known results. Also, in this category we consider papers that present new ideas without having a complete study to report on. Papers in this category will be judged on the soundness of the argument presented, the significance of the ideas and the interest to the HRI community.
*R* Replication of HRI studies
To develop as a field, HRI findings obtained by one research group need to be replicated by other groups. Without any additional novel insights, such work is often not publishable. Within this category, authors will have the opportunity to report on studies that confirm or disconfirm findings from experiments that have already been reported in the literature. This category includes studies that report on negative findings.
*D* Live HRI Demonstrations
Contributors may have an opportunity to provide live demonstrations (live or via Skype), pending the outcome of negotiations with the local organization team. The demo should highlight interesting features and insights into HRI. Purely entertaining demonstrations without significant research content are discouraged.
*Y* System Development
Research in this category includes the design and development of new sensors, robot designs and algorithms for socially interactive robots. Extensive user studies are not necessarily required in this category.
*TG* Topic group submissions on “natural interaction with social robots”
Submission in this category will be discussed in a session dedicated to the euRobotics Topic Group “Natural Interaction with Social Robots”. Topics specifically relevant to the TG are e.g. benchmarking of levels of social abilities, multimodal interaction, and human-robot interaction and communication (see list of topics above).
SUBMISSION FORMAT
We invite unpublished, original work as extended abstracts of up to 3 pages or full papers of up to 8 pages according to the AISB 2014 formatting guidelines (double column). In category *D* we invite one page descriptions detailing the demo and its associated research questions.
In addition to paper presentations, the symposium will also include invited talks and, potentially, panels. The symposium schedule will emphasise critical discussions of the presented research as well as wider issues that are important to HRI.
PROCEEDINGS
All accepted contributions will be published in the symposium proceedings (hard-copy and electronic copy). A special journal issue will be considered and/or a book publication with a selection of extended versions of the best symposium contributions.
SYMPOSIUM ORGANISERS
Dr. Maha Salem, Google, UK, me@mahasalem.net
Dr. Astrid Weiss, Vienna University of Technology, Austria, astrid.weiss@tuwien.ac.at
Dr. Paul Baxter, Plymouth University, UK, paul.baxter@plymouth.ac.uk
Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, University of Hertfordshire, UK, k.dautenhahn@herts.ac.uk