Raquel Oliveira

About

Raquel Oliveira is a prominent researcher in human-robot interaction (HRI) and social robotics, whose work sits at the compelling intersection of psychology, design, and emerging technology. Her scholarship critically examines how humans perceive, relate to, and behave alongside social robots, with particular attention to the psychological and social dimensions that shape these encounters. Among her most influential contributions is her 2019 review on robot humanization (105 citations), which offered a nuanced psychological assessment of the benefits and pitfalls of designing robots that resemble humans. Her work extends into prosocial behavior, exploring how robots and virtual agents can be deliberately designed to encourage kindness and cooperation in users — a theme further developed in her chapter on empathy and prosociality in social agents. Oliveira has also made meaningful strides in participatory design, introducing the Social Robot Co-Design Canvases framework (79 citations) to support multidisciplinary teams tackling complex robotics challenges. Her research spans assistive robotics for blind individuals, group dynamics in HRI, humor in robot interactions, and even cultural representations of robots in cinema. With over 500 cumulative citations, Oliveira's diverse yet cohesive body of work continues to shape how researchers, designers, and policymakers think about integrating robots responsibly into human social life.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Humanization of robots: Is it really such a good idea?

   105 citations · 2019
2. 2
   Towards prosocial design: A scoping review of the use of robots and virtual agents to trigger prosocial behaviour

   98 citations · 2020
3. 3
   Social Robot Co-Design Canvases: A Participatory Design Framework

   79 citations · 2021
4. 4
   Humor–Robot Interaction: A Scoping Review of the Literature and Future Directions

   46 citations · 2020
5. 5
   The Stereotype Content Model Applied to Human-Robot Interactions in Groups

   41 citations · 2019
6. 6
   What My Eyes Can't See, A Robot Can Show Me

   40 citations · 2018
7. 7
   Human-Robot Interaction in Groups: Methodological and Research Practices

   35 citations · 2021
8. 8
   Friends or Foes?

   34 citations · 2018
9. 9
   Empathy and Prosociality in Social Agents

   23 citations · 2021
10. 10
    Robots in movies: a content analysis of the portrayal of fictional social robots

    18 citations · 2023

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links