Papers
134
Total Citations
3,854
H-Index
31
About
Britta Wrede is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, social robotics, and cognitive systems, whose work has fundamentally shaped how we understand the relationship between humans and intelligent machines. Her research explores how and why humans attribute human-like qualities to robots and artificial agents — a question she examined compellingly through neuroimaging in her highly influential fMRI study on machine-directed anthropomorphism (486 citations). Wrede's contributions span the design of socially capable robots, including the expressive android head "Flobi" and the companion robot BIRON, as well as theoretical frameworks for understanding social robots and symbol grounding in intelligent systems. A particularly distinctive thread in her work is the application of developmental psychology to robotics: she has investigated how child-directed interaction strategies can reduce learning complexity in robots, proposing a productive dialogue between cognitive development research and autonomous systems design. With multiple papers exceeding 100 citations and a total body of work accumulating well over 1,500 citations, Wrede stands as a leading voice in developmental robotics and socially intelligent systems, offering students a rare combination of empirical rigor, interdisciplinary breadth, and practical robot design expertise.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Understanding Social Robots244 citations · 2009
- 3
- 4Social facilitation with social robots?155 citations · 2012
- 5Understanding social robots: A user study on anthropomorphism115 citations · 2008
- 6The bielefeld anthropomorphic robot head “Flobi”114 citations · 2010
- 7A Short Review of Symbol Grounding in Robotic and Intelligent Systems107 citations · 2013
- 8BIRON - The Bielefeld Robot Companion105 citations · 2004
- 9
- 10