Matthias Scheutz

About

Matthias Scheutz is a prominent researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science, whose work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of how humans perceive, communicate with, and make moral judgments about robots. With contributions spanning over two decades, his research addresses some of the most pressing questions in robotics and AI ethics. Scheutz's foundational work includes a widely-cited survey of development environments for autonomous mobile robots (266 citations) and pioneering research on natural language interaction, demonstrating how robots can parse spoken directives and translate them into executable goals (182 citations). His explorations of social and psychological dimensions of HRI have been equally influential — investigating how gender shapes human perceptions of robots (191 citations) and how voice-face mismatches produce uncanny valley effects (228 citations). Perhaps most notably, Scheutz has pushed into ethically charged territory, examining how people apply moral norms to robot behavior (238 citations) and producing some of the first empirical research on attitudes toward sex robots (112 citations). His 2021 roadmap for spoken language interaction with robots (106 citations) continues to guide the field forward. Collectively, his work has made him an indispensable voice in responsible, human-centered robotics research.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Development environments for autonomous mobile robots: A survey

   266 citations · 2006
2. 2
   Sacrifice One For the Good of Many?

   238 citations · 2015
3. 3
   A Mismatch in the Human Realism of Face and Voice Produces an Uncanny Valley

   228 citations · 2011
4. 4
   Robot social presence and gender

   191 citations · 2008
5. 5
   First steps toward natural human-like HRI

   183 citations · 2006
6. 6
   What to do and how to do it: Translating natural language directives into temporal and dynamic logic representation for goal management and action execution

   182 citations · 2009
7. 7
   Gendered voice and robot entities: Perceptions and reactions of male and female subjects

   121 citations · 2009
8. 8
   Are we ready for sex robots?

   112 citations · 2016
9. 9
   The Architectural Basis of Affective States and Processes

   109 citations · 2005
10. 10
    Spoken language interaction with robots: Recommendations for future research

    106 citations · 2021

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links