Yoshitaka Suehiro

Papers

Total Citations

348

H-Index

About

Yoshitaka Suehiro is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction, with a specific focus on the complex social dynamics that emerge when robots operate in public spaces. His work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of how children interact with—and sometimes mistreat—social robots. Suehiro’s key contributions center on documenting and analyzing child-robot abuse, a phenomenon he observed firsthand during field studies in shopping malls. His landmark 2015 paper, “Escaping from Children's Abuse of Social Robots,” has garnered 199 citations, establishing a foundational framework for designing robots that can detect and respond to hostile behavior. He followed this with the highly influential “Why do children abuse robots?” (2016, 95 citations), which used interviews and observation to uncover the motivations behind children’s verbal and physical aggression—ranging from curiosity and play to frustration and social testing. Suehiro’s work is notable for its real-world, ethnographic approach, moving beyond lab settings to capture authentic interactions. By revealing that abuse is often a form of exploration rather than simple malice, he has guided the development of more resilient, socially aware robots and informed ethical guidelines for public deployments. His research remains essential reading for anyone designing robots for unsupervised, child-rich environments.