Papers
28
Total Citations
327
H-Index
10
About
Irini Giannopulu is a pioneering cognitive neuroscientist whose research sits at the intersection of child development, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and human-robot interaction. Her work has fundamentally advanced our understanding of how multimodal cognitive processes — encompassing nonverbal cues such as eye contact, touch, posture, and manipulation — can serve as foundational building blocks for emotional and verbal communication in autistic children. Giannopulu's most significant contribution lies in her systematic investigation of child-robot interaction as a therapeutic and rehabilitative tool for children with ASD. Through carefully designed free spontaneous game play scenarios involving minimalist mobile toy robots, she has demonstrated that robotic environments can facilitate emergent emotional expression, language development, and interpersonal synchronisation in autistic children — findings that have reshaped neurorehabilitation approaches worldwide. Her speaker-listener paradigm, comparing responses to human and robot interlocutors, has shed important light on intentionality, empathy, and neural connectivity in ASD. Accumulating nearly 230 citations across her most influential works, Giannopulu's research bridges experimental rigour with profound clinical relevance. Her decade-spanning body of work, from early interaction studies in 2010 through synchronisation research in 2020, establishes her as a leading voice in robot-assisted intervention for neurodevelopmental disorders.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8Communication using robots: a Perception-action scenario in moderate ASD16 citations · 2018
- 9Ordered interpersonal synchronisation in ASD children via robots14 citations · 2020
- 10