IEEE RO-MAN 2024 Special Session on Social Human-Robot Interaction of Human-care Service Robots:
Exploring Foundation Models in Social Human-Robot Interaction

Date and Location

2024-08-28, Co-located with IEEE RO-MAN 2024), Pasadena, CA, USA

Aim and Scope

Service robots have transcended the introductory phase and are now widely deployed, playing a pivotal role in enhancing our daily lives. Marking the fourth installment of this influential special session at RO-MAN 2024, we continue our commitment to advancing the field of social human-robot interaction. This year, we are placing a special emphasis on the application of foundation models in social human-robot interactions, a rapidly evolving area that promises to revolutionize our understanding and implementation of socially intelligent robots. The special session aims to foster a pioneering exploration into how foundation models are reshaping the landscape of social interactions between humans and robots. Our discussion will encompass:

• Innovative Technical Implementations: Delving into how foundation models enhance the capabilities of social robots for more natural and effective human-robot interactions.

• Design, Functionality, and Behavior: Examining the impact of foundation models on the design and functionality of service robots, ensuring they are user-friendly and exhibit advanced social intelligence.

• Human Behavioral Insights and Expectations: Understanding the human side of the equation — how people perceive, interact with, and adapt to robots powered by foundation models.

In addition to these focus areas, we also warmly welcome papers addressing general issues in social human-robot interaction. This broadens our scope to include a wide range of topics and perspectives, enriching the discourse and development in the field.

We invite experts and enthusiasts from diverse fields, including human-robot interaction design, AI, social psychology, and robotics, to contribute to this dynamic discussion. This session will serve as a platform for sharing innovative ideas and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, ultimately contributing to the seamless integration of service robots into society.

Topics of interest include but not limited to:

• Adaptive Conversation Models for Human-Robot Interaction
• Foundation Models for Emotional Intelligence in Robots
• Cross-modal Understanding for Enhanced Social Interaction
• Personalization and User Profiling with LLMs
• Ethical Considerations and Bias Mitigation in LLM-driven HRI
• Interactive Learning and Knowledge Expansion in HRI
• Social perception and context awareness
• Short/long-term behavior recognition
• Social expression and interactive behavior
• Social task modeling and management
• Social grasping and navigation skills
• Social humanoid robot design
• Human-robot interaction design
• Emotion recognition and model design
• Dialogue based interaction
• User evaluation
• Applications such as healthcare, receptionist, education

Important Dates

• Initial Paper Submission: March 20, 2024 (extended)
• Notification of Acceptance: May 10, 2024
• Final Paper Submission: June 07, 2024

Submission Guidelines

• Paper Templates: LaTex, Word
• Submission: Submit “You should select the session code 91r6n when submitting your paper.”

Organizers

• Minsu Jang, Co-Chair, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, South Korea
• Ho-Seok Ahn, Co-Chair, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Hastice Gunes, Co-Chair, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Tony Belpaeme, Co-Chair, Ghent University, Belgium
• Elmira Yadollahi, Co-Chair, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Kristiina Jokinen, Co-Chair, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan
• Jongsuk Choi, Co-Advisor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
• Jaehong Kim, Co-Advisor, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, South Korea

Session Information

We received 9 paper submissions for our special session, of which 6 were accepted. The accepted papers are:

1. “Beyond Acceptance: Patients’ Perspectives on Humanoid Assistive Robots in Healthcare” (Linda Sørensen et al.)
2. “The Impact of Compositionality in Zero-Shot Multi-Label Action Recognition for Object-Based Tasks” (Carmela Calabrese et al.)
3. “PhysicsAssistant: An LLM-Powered Interactive Learning Robot for Physics Lab Investigations” (Ehsan Latif)
4. “Enhancing Emotion Detection through ChatGPT-Augmented Text Transformation in Social Media Text” (Sanghyub John Lee)
5. “Weighted Multi-Modal Sign Language Recognition” (Edmond Liu et al.)
6. “Towards an Interaction Stimulator Social Robot in the Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Based on Real-Time Speech Processing” (David Vincze et al.)

The special session was held on August 28th at 11:00 AM at the room T1 of the Pasadena Convention Center venue.