Shinya Fujie

About

Shinya Fujie is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction, specializing in conversational robotics and multiparty communication dynamics. His work focuses on developing robots that can seamlessly participate in and facilitate group conversations, addressing the complex challenges of engagement, turn-taking, and social coordination. Fujie’s major contributions include computational models for conversational strategy, enabling robots to choose between observing and actively joining human group discussions, as well as systems that leverage head gesture recognition as para-linguistic information to enhance interaction naturalness. His highly cited 2001 paper on group conversation modeling (66 citations) and 2005 work on gesture-aware robots (62 citations) established foundational frameworks in the field. Notably, his 2015 study on facilitation robots as fourth participants in four-person conversations (58 citations) explores the unique dynamics of balanced engagement density, a critical advancement for elderly care and social assistance applications. With over 270 total citations, Fujie’s research has profound implications for aging societies, particularly in Japan, where his communication activation systems have been tested in daycare centers to improve social interaction among the elderly. His work bridges robotics, linguistics, and psychology, offering practical solutions for socially assistive robots.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Modeling of conversational strategy for the robot participating in the group conversation

   66 citations · 2001
2. 2
   A conversation robot using head gesture recognition as para-linguistic information

   62 citations · 2005
3. 3
   Four-participant group conversation: A facilitation robot controlling engagement density as the fourth participant

   58 citations · 2015
4. 4
   Framework of Communication Activation Robot Participating in Multiparty Conversation

   24 citations · 2010
5. 5
   Conversation robot participating in and activating a group communication

   19 citations · 2009
6. 6
   Designing communication activation system in group communication

   11 citations · 2008
7. 7
   Conversational robots: An approach to conversation protocol issues that utilizes the paralinguistic information available in a robot-human setting

   10 citations · 2013
8. 8
   Automatic Expressive Opinion Sentence Generation for Enjoyable Conversational Systems

   10 citations · 2014
9. 9
   Psychological evaluation of a group communication activativation robot in a party game

   9 citations · 2010
10. 10
    MONEA: message-oriented networked-robot architecture

    9 citations · 2006

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links