Iris Cohen

Utrecht University, Human Factors (Norway)

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Iris Cohen is a pioneering researcher in child-robot interaction, with a focus on how children perceive and respond to robotic emotional expressions. Her work bridges developmental psychology and human-robot interaction, exploring how platforms like the iCat and Nao robots can convey emotions through facial and body posture cues. Cohen’s most cited study, “Child's recognition of emotions in robot's face and body” (2011, 33 citations), demonstrated that children can reliably identify emotions in both facially expressive and mobile robots, a key insight for designing social robots to support children with chronic diseases. Her subsequent work (2014, 24 citations) examined how platform, context, and prior experience shape children’s emotional perception, advancing understanding of adaptive human-robot communication. Though early work on robotic emotion recognition (2010) had limited impact, Cohen’s cumulative contributions have informed the development of empathetic robotic companions for pediatric care. Her research underscores the importance of multimodal emotional expression in robots, influencing both design practices and therapeutic applications. Cohen’s work remains foundational for scholars studying affective computing and socially assistive robotics.