Cognition: A Bridge between Robotics and Interaction

A key feature of humans is the ability to anticipate what other agents are going to do and to plan accordingly a collaborative action. This skill, derived from being able to entertain models of other agents, allows for the compensation for intrinsic delays of human motor control and is a primary support for efficient and fluid interaction. Moreover, the awareness that other humans are cognitive agents who combine sensory perception with internal models of the environment and others, enables easier mutual understanding and coordination [1]. Cognition represents therefore an ideal link between different disciplines, as the field of Robotics and that of Interaction studies performed by neuroscientists and psychologists. From a robotics perspective, the study of cognition is aimed at implementing cognitive architectures leading to efficient interaction with the environment and other agents (e.g., [2,3]). From the perspective of the human disciplines, robots could represent an ideal stimulus to study which are the fundamental robot properties necessary to make it perceived as a cognitive agent, enabling natural human-robot interaction (e.g., [4,5]). Ideally, the implementation of cognitive architectures may raise new interesting questions for psychologists, and the behavioral and neuroscientific results of the human-robot interaction studies could validate or give new inputs for robotics engineers. The aim of this workshop will be to provide a venue for researchers of different disciplines to discuss the possible points of contact and to highlight the issues and the advantages of bridging different fields for the study of cognition for interaction.