During the past decade, robots’ interaction capabilities have increased considerably, and they have also started to spread both to new societies across the globe and to new sectors in societies where they were already present. This leads to a larger variety in both the
societal context in which they are used, and the socio-cultural background of the users, which introduces new requirements on awareness of social cues to cooperate with people in unstructured settings, and regardless of the users’ personal characteristics such as age, familiarity with technology, linguistic level, cultural background or special needs.
Socio-Culturally-aware Robotics is an emergent area of research that seeks to understand how new generations of robots can become aware of their social and cultural context and use this capability to behave as more accessible, accepted, and useful devices in their environment and, especially, towards the people that populate it. The Research Topic compiles current knowledge and best practice regarding how social and cultural awareness can be incorporated in robots working in application domains where they interact closely with humans, such as education, caregiving, or home assistance. The main perspective is that of the human users, with a focus on user-centered design approaches, user experience evaluation, user perception of the robots and benefits for the users. Contributions cover, in particular, requirements on the robot’s design, interaction and contextual awareness in the different application settings, in different robot roles (e.g., companion, tutor, assistant) with different types of users (e.g., children or adults, native or non-native) from different cultural and social backgrounds.
Research has started to appear on how robots can be adapted to, and autonomously adapt to, different socio-cultural settings. However, each study only gives a partial view for its specific context. This collection, therefore, aims to provide a more complete picture of the status and future development of HRI strategies for different socio-cultural settings and recent advances in adapting robots to new or changing contexts.
The collection contains both
• Original research addressing robot and HRI requirements for one or several
relevant socio-cultural contexts.
• Reviews of previous work aiming to identify best practice for social, cultural and
contextual awareness.
Contributions to this Research Topic primarily address the following aspects of HRI
• Design and implementation of robots and HRI for different socio-cultural contexts
• Cross-cultural and cross-contextual HRI studies
• Socially and culturally aware robots in learning applications
• Assistive robots in different contexts
• Personalised human-robot interaction
During the past decade, robots’ interaction capabilities have increased considerably, and they have also started to spread both to new societies across the globe and to new sectors in societies where they were already present. This leads to a larger variety in both the
societal context in which they are used, and the socio-cultural background of the users, which introduces new requirements on awareness of social cues to cooperate with people in unstructured settings, and regardless of the users’ personal characteristics such as age, familiarity with technology, linguistic level, cultural background or special needs.
Socio-Culturally-aware Robotics is an emergent area of research that seeks to understand how new generations of robots can become aware of their social and cultural context and use this capability to behave as more accessible, accepted, and useful devices in their environment and, especially, towards the people that populate it. The Research Topic compiles current knowledge and best practice regarding how social and cultural awareness can be incorporated in robots working in application domains where they interact closely with humans, such as education, caregiving, or home assistance. The main perspective is that of the human users, with a focus on user-centered design approaches, user experience evaluation, user perception of the robots and benefits for the users. Contributions cover, in particular, requirements on the robot’s design, interaction and contextual awareness in the different application settings, in different robot roles (e.g., companion, tutor, assistant) with different types of users (e.g., children or adults, native or non-native) from different cultural and social backgrounds.
Research has started to appear on how robots can be adapted to, and autonomously adapt to, different socio-cultural settings. However, each study only gives a partial view for its specific context. This collection, therefore, aims to provide a more complete picture of the status and future development of HRI strategies for different socio-cultural settings and recent advances in adapting robots to new or changing contexts.
The collection contains both
• Original research addressing robot and HRI requirements for one or several
relevant socio-cultural contexts.
• Reviews of previous work aiming to identify best practice for social, cultural and
contextual awareness.
Contributions to this Research Topic primarily address the following aspects of HRI
• Design and implementation of robots and HRI for different socio-cultural contexts
• Cross-cultural and cross-contextual HRI studies
• Socially and culturally aware robots in learning applications
• Assistive robots in different contexts
• Personalised human-robot interaction