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About

Derek Brock is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction (HRI), with a focus on enabling robots to understand and communicate with humans in natural, intuitive ways. His key research areas include perspective-taking in robots, spatial language for human-robot dialogs, and auditory scene adaptation. Brock’s most influential work, "Enabling Effective Human–Robot Interaction Using Perspective-Taking in Robots" (2005, 307 citations), introduced the Polyscheme cognitive architecture, demonstrating how robots can infer a human’s viewpoint to collaborate more effectively—a concept he tested in astronaut teamwork scenarios. His 2004 paper on spatial language (221 citations) explored how robots can interpret and generate relational phrases like "in front of" or "behind," crucial for natural dialog. Brock also investigated developmental HRI, showing in a 2006 study (67 citations) that young children can learn perspective-taking through hide-and-seek games with robots. His work on auditory perspective-taking (2012) addressed robot ego-noise challenges, improving speech intelligibility in noisy environments. Collaborating with NASA, Brock advanced humanoid robot interfaces for space missions, aiming to make robot teammates as seamless as human colleagues. With over 700 total citations, his research continues to shape how robots perceive, reason, and communicate in shared human spaces.