Timing in human-robot interaction

Abstract

Timing plays a role in a range of human-robot interaction scenarios, as humans are highly sensitive to timing and interaction fluency. It is central to spoken dialogue, with turn-taking, interruptions, and hesitation influencing both task efficiency and user affect. Timing is also an important factor in the interpretation and generation of gestures, gaze, facial expressions, and other nonverbal behavior. Beyond communication, temporal synchronization is functionally necessary for sharing resources and physical space, as well as coordinating multi-agent actions. Timing is thus crucial to the success of a broad spectrum of HRI applications, including but not limited to situated dialogue; collaborative manipulation; performance, musical, and entertainment robots; and expressive robot companions. Recent years have seen a growing interest in the HRI community in the various research topics related to human-robot timing. The purpose of this workshop is to explore and discuss theories, computational models, systems, empirical studies, and interdisciplinary insights related to the notion of timing, fluency, and rhythm in human-robot interaction.