Abstract
Cognitive modeling of human behavior has advanced the understanding of underlying processes in several domains of psychology and cognitive science. In this article, we outline how we expect cognitive modeling to improve comprehension of individual cognitive processes in human-agent interaction and, particularly, human-robot interaction (HRI). We argue that cognitive models offer advantages compared to data-analytical models, specifically for research questions with expressed interest in theories of cognitive functions. However, the implementation of cognitive models is arguably more complex than common statistical procedures. Additionally, cognitive modeling paradigms typically have an explicit commitment to an underlying computational theory. We propose a conceptual framework for designing cognitive models that aims to identify whether the use of cognitive modeling is applicable to a given research question. The framework consists of five external and internal aspects related to the modeling process: research question, level of analysis, modeling paradigms, computational properties, and iterative model development. In addition to deriving our framework from a concise literature analysis, we discuss challenges and potentials of cognitive modeling. We expect cognitive models to leverage personalized human behavior prediction, agent behavior generation, and interaction pretraining as well as adaptation, which we outline with application examples from personalized HRI.
Introduction
Contemporary approaches highlight the relevance of personalization in human-agent interaction (HAI). For example, e-commerce applications that use web personalization to create product deals and recommendations for users traditionally enjoy persistent research interest (). However, personalization has also long since branched out from e-commerce to further areas of human-computer interaction (HCI), such as activity recognition (; ; Siirtola et al., 2019), body part tracking (), assisted driving (Hasenjäger and Wersing, 2017), and human-robot interaction (HRI; ; Collins, 2019; ). Although user experience of personalized services is positively influenced by overtness and transparency (; ), personalization is not universally appreciated due to concerns over users’ loss of information privacy (; ; Awad and Krishnan, 2006; ; Ku et al., 2018).
As argue, personalization is typically achieved by a system adapting to data-driven inference about users based on their previous behaviors. Their study posits that a theoretically motivated approach may lead to two benefits over a purely data-driven model: reducing the need for extensive data analysis and potentially generating new insight regarding the appropriateness of a given theory. The sentiment for more theory-driven approaches in data analysis is also shared by and . Both articles highlight the improved prediction of human decisions by machine learning models after implementing variants of behaviorally relevant psychological theories. specifically make the case for pretraining machine learning models with data simulated by cognitive models. Cognitive models refer to the instantiation of a theory that relates to one or more cognitive functions and tries computationally to replicate them. Due to this, cognitive modeling is routinely used synonymously with computational modeling (). In previous research, the application of cognitive models has helped to explain or recontextualize several empirically established psychological phenomena (; ; ; ). It is routinely argued that the advantage of cognitive models over, for example, verbal-conceptual or data-driven statistical models lie in the need to translate a theoretical framework into a computational system, leaving less freedom for interpretation (; ; ; ). In contrast to cognitive models, verbal-conceptual models define no formal relationship between concepts in a mathematical sense, and statistical models use mathematical equations to describe the relationship between concepts but do not require the translation into a computational system. notes that statistical models “may be viewed as a subset of computational models, as normally they can readily lead to computational implementations […].”
As and show, involving cognitive models in human behavior prediction as outlined in Figure 1 increases predictive performance. It is reasonable to assume that a similar performance increase can be expected by incorporating cognitive models into the data-analytic inference required for personalization () and in (personalized) HRI (Collins, 2019; ; ; ). Following from this, this article discusses challenges and potentials of cognitive models focusing on user-specific effects and proposes a conceptual framework for (personalized) model development in Section “A Conceptual Framework for Designing Cognitive Models.” Subsequently, we discuss the HRI application examples from Figure 1 in detail and analyze common pitfalls in Section “Application Examples and Pitfalls.” Section “Conclusion” concludes by discussing connections of personalization and cognitive modeling and outlining directions for future research.
Figure 1
A Conceptual Framework for Designing Cognitive Models
We present a conceptual framework to consider model-related and external aspects when designing cognitive models, following the definition of conceptual frameworks given by
Figure 2

Conceptual framework for cognitive model design. External aspects are displayed in gray, and pink indicates initial considerations that inform the specific design decisions, which are themselves colored blue. The framework is used by evaluating domain suitability and available resources to reach a decision on whether to initiate the modeling process. Then, model-related aspects are defined and the resulting model is empirically evaluated. If necessary, an iterative process of model improvement is started.
Research Questions and Resources
An initial threshold regarding the application of cognitive models is the considered research question, i.e., questions related to cognitive functions.
A second important requirement of applying cognitive modeling relates to resources available to the researcher, e.g., programming capabilities. To our knowledge, there is no software solution available that allows for cognitive modeling design without programming expertise. As
Relevant Levels of Analysis
Applying cognitive modeling to a given research question includes identifying the levels of analysis that are most relevant or applicable, i.e., which level of analysis is required to describe the given problem. For example,
Selection of Cognitive Modeling Paradigms
Considering the identified cognitive problem, several modeling paradigms may present themselves, each with their own potential for personalization. These candidate paradigms are routinely, but not necessarily, defined on the same level of analysis (
Depending on the relation to cognitive functions and levels of analysis (
Computational Properties of the Modeled System
As previously outlined, there are no general indications to select modeling paradigms or covering levels of analysis (
A principled way of drawing inference about a cognitive model’s parameters on intra‐ and inter-individual levels comes in the form of hierarchical cognitive modeling (
Iterative Model Development, Evaluation, and Revision
Our proposed framework considers the external aspects, and settling on specific decisions regarding model development should result in a functioning and testable cognitive model. Evaluating the resulting model against empirical evidence or competing models, however, may show a gap between model predictions and observed behavior, depending on the specific nature of the research question. This suggests an iterative process of model development, evaluation, and revision, which provides the opportunity to reassess whether a specific combination of levels of analysis, modeling paradigm, and computational properties suits the research question.
Application Examples and Pitfalls
Before highlighting application examples and pitfalls of cognitive modeling in HAI with regard to personalization, it is necessary to define applications of cognitive models. We differentiate between three applications of cognitive models as outlined in Figure 1: (1) using models of human agents to understand decisional or perceptual processes to improve predictions of the agent’s behavior, (2) modeling human behavior to pretrain and adapt interaction, e.g., to monitor users’ preferences, and (3) generating behavior of an artificial agent based on a cognitive model of human behavior.
The agent of interest may be a humanoid robot, a chat bot, or any type of system that might benefit from generating its own behavior in a human-like manner. In the remainder of this section, we focus on interaction between humans and humanoid robots as shown in Figure 1 because we deem it a striking and very graspable exemplary case. Here, robotic agents may use cognitive models to predict human interactions, but they may also control their own sensorimotor behavior by use of such a cognitive model. The benefit of applying cognitive approaches lies in the potentially realistic imitation of human behavior and can foster both psychological research and the development of humanoid robots (
Pitfalls of applying cognitive models to HAI are generally similar to other domains. The advantage of higher formalization and predictive precision comes at the price of having to communicate programming-related and mathematical concepts to audiences that may be used to verbal-conceptual theories. Additionally, development, maintenance, and publication of model code represent considerable challenges compared to less computationally sophisticated methods. When programming a model, researchers need to be aware of the relation between the number of free parameters in a model and the danger of overfitting (
Conclusion
Cognitive modeling has strong potential in general and personalized HAI. We recommend considering the given conditions, especially whether the interactive task deals with the inter-individual aspects of cognitive functions. The conceptual framework proposed in this article helps to determine which cognitive function is of relevance and which cognitive modeling paradigm satisfies the required computational properties and serves for personalization as well as whether formal theories of cognition exist. Moreover, using the framework in HAI systems may help to discern whether a cognitive model could be used to predict human behavior, to pretrain and adapt interaction, and/or to generate the behavior of an artificial agent in a personalized fashion (see Figure 1).
Although not too commonly used, personalized HAI can be realized with many contemporary modeling paradigms through fitting free parameters or even online adaptation of model structures. We outline conditions that, when met, put cognitive modeling in a strong position to provide insights that cannot be provided by otherwise prominent statistical models. As
Applying the proposed framework can clarify the relation between external and internal aspects of cognitive modeling and, especially, support first-time users. Future research should elaborate the conceptual framework in empirical HAI studies; focusing the purposes outlined in Figure 1 will help to improve personalized interaction.
Statements
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
Funding
We acknowledge financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Technische Universität Dortmund/TU Dortmund University within the funding programme Open Access Publishing.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
personalization, cognitive modeling, human-agent interaction, behavior prediction/generation, interaction adaption
Citation
Schürmann T and Beckerle P (2020) Personalizing Human-Agent Interaction Through Cognitive Models. Front. Psychol. 11:561510. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.561510
Received
12 May 2020
Accepted
14 August 2020
Published
24 September 2020
Volume
11 - 2020
Edited by
Bruce Ferwerda, Jönköping University, Sweden
Reviewed by
Panagiotis Germanakos, SAP SE, Germany; Benjamin Cowley, University of Helsinki, Finland
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© 2020 Schürmann and Beckerle.
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*Correspondence: Philipp Beckerle, philipp.beckerle@tu-dortmund.de
This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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