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About

Jakob Reinhardt’s research sits at the intersection of human-robot interaction, social robotics, and movement psychology, exploring how a robot’s motion shapes human trust, compliance, and cooperation. His most influential work, “Dominance and movement cues of robot motion” (37 citations), experimentally demonstrates that dominant versus submissive movement strategies in a manipulator robot directly affect a user’s perceived predictability and trust during proximal cooperation—a foundational insight for designing collaborative industrial robots. Reinhardt’s concept of the “back-off” movement (19 citations) redefines how robots communicate yielding intentions in spatial interactions, showing that a deliberate backward motion is far more effective than a static standstill for conveying priority. He further developed a Compliance–Reactance Framework (12 citations) that systematically models when humans follow a robot’s requests versus when they resist, integrating behavioral and affective processes. His work on perceived task urgency as justification for dominant robot behavior, corporate robot motion identity, and hesitant movement gestures rounds out a portfolio that bridges engineering, psychology, and design. With over 80 total citations, Reinhardt is shaping how robots move not just efficiently, but socially—making them more intuitive partners in shared spaces.