Towards Modeling Social-Cognitive Mechanisms in Robots to Facilitate Human-Robot Teaming

Abstract

For effective human-robot teaming, robots must gain the appropriate social-cognitive mechanisms that allow them to function naturally and intuitively in social interactions with humans. However, there is a lack of consensus on social cognition broadly, and how to design such mechanisms for embodied robotic systems. To this end, recommendations are advanced that are drawn from HRI, psychology, robotics, neuroscience and philosophy as well as theories of embodied cognition, dual process theory, ecological psychology, and dynamical systems. These interdisciplinary and multi-theoretic recommendations are meant to serve as integrative and foundational guidelines for the design of robots with effective social-cognitive mechanisms.