Project description
How robots can offer personal support
Robots are increasingly helping in education and healthcare, but their interaction with humans can be challenging. While fostering emotional connections is essential, the question of why people would want to befriend robots remains underexplored. The ERC-funded ROBOT-BOND project will bridge the knowledge gap in human-robot bonding by integrating insights from multiple disciplines into a cohesive model. This model will explain individual differences relating to robots and identify when robots can or cannot offer personal support. The project will focus on how people process information from real-life and media sources and the effects of emotional states and relevant needs. It will apply a multi-method approach comparing autonomous social robots in different roles over time, using new measurement tools and Bayesian statistics.
Objective
Robots are rapidly entering the human arena as social entities to support education and healthcare where human resources fall short. The ease and naturalness with which humans interact with social robots forebode a high potential but also present new scientific challenges. I see a paradox of nt wanting to emulate humans in robots but still create the human feel in connectedness.
Ample research has been done in engineering, design and computer sciences, yet, the question from a human perspective is understudied: Why would one be willing to befriend such a thing? While building affective relationships is crucial to prolonged human-robot interaction, no encompassing theory exists that explains how, why, and when humans would bond with robots.
My aim is to fill this knowledge gap and unravel the paradox, by bridging the fragmented multi-disciplinary knowledge in a novel cross-disciplinary and integrative model of Human-Robot Bonding, explaining how and why people differ in relating to robots and when robots can (not) provide personal support. My model identifies key propositions underlying bonding with robots and elucidates how people process reality- and media-based information, explicate the role of emotional states, relevant needs, and affordances, empirically examined through varying communication contexts.
My advantageous multi-method approach pairs fundamental with in-situ research, tests my model in lab-studies (WP1) and the real world: in education (WP2&3), healthcare (WP4), and therapy (WP5). It uniquely compares autonomous social robots in different roles in longitudinal designs with new psychometrically sound measurement devices and Bayesian statistics, to bring required methodological innovations to the field. Results complement and integrate current perspectives on robots, enrich the understanding of communication, and has potential ground-breaking implications for science nd society (WP6), envisioning expansive applicability of communication robots.
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Keywords
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG
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1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands
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