Sonja Stange
Papers
6
Total Citations
125
H-Index
4
About
Sonja Stange is a leading researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction (HRI) and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), focusing on how social robots can communicate their decision-making processes to build trust and understanding with human users. Her major contributions center on developing and evaluating a novel behavior generation architecture that enables robots to provide "self-explanations"—verbal justifications for their actions in real-time. Through a series of influential studies, Stange has systematically investigated how the timing of these explanations (before or after acting), their framing (referring to robot vs. user needs), and their content affect user perception, especially when robots exhibit surprising or undesirable behavior. Her work, which has garnered over 125 citations, demonstrates that self-explanations significantly improve users' understanding and assessment of robot actions. Notably, she has also applied these principles to educational contexts, exploring how explainable robot behavior can scaffold second-language learning in children. Stange’s research is foundational for designing transparent, trustworthy autonomous systems that can operate effectively alongside humans in real-world environments.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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