Soraia Oliveira
Papers
2
Total Citations
7
H-Index
2
About
Soraia Oliveira is a researcher in human-robot interaction, with a focus on how social cues—particularly eye gaze—affect trust and performance in collaborative settings. Her most-cited work, "The robot eyes don't have it" (2023, 5 citations), challenges the assumption that anthropomorphic features like robotic eyes inherently improve human-robot collaboration. Through a controlled virtual reality study, Oliveira demonstrated that while eyed robots elicited marginally higher subjective trust from users, they paradoxically led to lower objective task performance. This counterintuitive finding highlights a critical tension in robot design: social features that feel more trustworthy may actually distract or mislead users in practical tasks. A follow-up paper (2023, 2 citations) reinforces these results. Oliveira’s contributions are significant for the field of collaborative robotics, offering empirical evidence that designers must weigh social appeal against functional efficiency. Her work is particularly relevant for students and researchers exploring the ethics and psychology of human-robot interaction, as it underscores that "human-like" design is not always beneficial. By questioning the uncritical adoption of social cues, Oliveira helps shape more effective, evidence-based approaches to building trustworthy robots.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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- 2