Jill Boberg

Creative Technologies (United States), University of Southern California

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Jill Boberg’s research lies at the intersection of human-robot interaction, social dialogue, and trust dynamics. Her most cited work, “Getting to Know Each Other” (2018, 57 citations), investigates how social dialogue can either mitigate or exacerbate the erosion of trust when robots commit conversational errors. Using a NAO robot programmed to persuade users, Boberg manipulates the timing of conversation to reveal critical insights into rapport-building’s double-edged nature. Her earlier paper, “The Role of Social Dialogue and Errors in Robots” (2017, 11 citations), further explores how rapport can both benefit and harm robot-human conversations, particularly when errors occur. Boberg also co-developed the Niki and Julie Corpus (2018, 4 citations), a collaborative multimodal dialogue system featuring a robot and virtual human designed to study social influence. Her work on “Niki and Julie” (2016, 4 citations) demonstrates how these agents engage in scenarios that build familiarity and attempt to influence human participants—a foundational contribution to understanding trust in social robotics. Boberg’s research is essential for designing robots that navigate the delicate balance between social connection and reliability.