Miriam Koschate
Papers
2
Total Citations
40
H-Index
2
About
Miriam Koschate’s research lies at the fascinating intersection of social robotics, human-computer interaction, and psychology, where she investigates how people perceive and interact with humanlike machines. Her most influential work tackles the “uncanny valley”—the unsettling feeling evoked by highly realistic robots. In a landmark 2016 study (37 citations), Koschate demonstrated that this eeriness stems from heightened thoughts of mortality triggered by near-perfect human likeness. Crucially, she proposed an elegant solution: rather than reducing a robot’s humanlikeness, adding displays of emotion can mitigate the uncanny effect, making robots appear warmer and less threatening. This insight has reshaped design strategies for social robots. Her subsequent “in the wild” usability study (2016) explored tele-operated humanoid avatars, revealing their unique advantages over video conferencing for remote presence and embodied interaction. Koschate’s work is distinguished by its empirical rigor and practical relevance, offering clear guidelines for engineers and designers. Her contributions are foundational for creating robots that are both humanlike and socially acceptable, directly informing the development of empathetic, approachable AI companions.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Humanoid robot avatars: An ‘in the wild’ usability study3 citations · 2016