Veronika Konok
Papers
4
Total Citations
185
H-Index
4
About
Veronika Konok investigates the intersection of human-animal bonds and human-robot interaction, exploring how principles from canine social behavior can inform the design of emotionally intelligent artificial agents. Her work centers on what makes a robot “social” and believable, drawing direct parallels between the traits people value in companion dogs—such as loyalty, playfulness, and responsiveness—and the features that could make social robots more accepted and effective in everyday life. In her highly cited 2017 paper, “Should we love robots?” (86 citations), she systematically identifies these key qualities and proposes how they can be implemented in robotic design. Her 2014 study on emotion attribution to non-humanoid robots (60 citations) demonstrated that humans readily assign emotional states to robots even in minimal social scenarios, a finding with profound implications for human-machine trust and companionship. More recently, she has developed biologically inspired emotional expressions for artificial agents, creating abstract visualization prototypes that convey five basic emotions. Through her research, Konok bridges ethology and robotics, providing a compelling framework for designing machines that feel less mechanical and more like social partners.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Emotion Attribution to a Non-Humanoid Robot in Different Social Situations60 citations · 2014
- 3Sensing sociality in dogs: what may make an interactive robot social?22 citations · 2013
- 4Biologically Inspired Emotional Expressions for Artificial Agents17 citations · 2018