Guest Lecture by Gabriele Trovato on Human-Robot Interaction and Culture

HRI poses several challenges as interaction cannot last long and is not always comfortable. Some important factors such as physical appearance, culturally adaptive behaviour, comprehensibility and perceived intelligence influence robot acceptance. Through careful design of head, body and behaviour, robot is seen as more familiar, and a longer and better interaction can be achieved. In this presentation, experiments conducted in Egypt, Japan, Netherlands, Germany and Brazil with humanoid robots shed light on the matter.

Gabriele Trovato is currently JSPS Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Waseda University, Tokyo. (M.S.  Computer Engineering, University of Pisa, 2008, Ph.D.  Biorobotics, Waseda University 2014) Research Assistant for the Global Center of Excellence program in Japan, Trovato has been chairman of the organising committee and presenter of Italy-Japan Workshops. Research interests include Human-Robot Interaction, with focus on culture related aspects, artificial emotions in humanoids, robot design, Procedural Content Generation, and machine learning. 

Gabriele Trova's bio