Function Meets Style: Insights From Emotion Theory Applied to HRI

Abstract

As robot designers, we tend to emphasize the cognitive aspect of intelligence when designing robot architectures while viewing the affective aspect with skepticism. However, scientific studies continue to reveal the deeply intertwined and complementary roles that cognition and emotion play in intelligent decision-making, planning, learning, attention, communication, social interaction, memory, and more. Such findings provide valuable insights and lessons for the design of autonomous robots that must operate in complex and uncertain environments and perform in cooperation with people. This paper presents a concrete implementation of how these insights have guided our work, focusing on the design of sociable autonomous robots that interact with people as capable partners.