Tohru Matsumoto

Toyota Technological Institute, Aoyama Gakuin University

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Tohru Matsumoto is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of social robotics and assistive technology, whose work has fundamentally shaped how robots can support children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). His primary research areas include human-robot interaction, imitation learning, and socially assistive robotics, with a particular focus on developing robotic systems that can help children with autism improve their social and imitation skills. Matsumoto's most impactful contribution is his 2011 paper "Mimicking and Evaluating Human Motion to Improve the Imitation Skill of Children with Autism Through a Robot," which has garnered 60 citations and established a foundational framework for using robots as therapeutic tools. His earlier 2010 study on assistive robots for improving imitation skills (21 citations) further demonstrated the practical applications of this approach. Notably, his 2010 work on extracting symbolic postures to transfer social cues into robots introduced a novel, training-data-free algorithm that enables robots to naturally replicate human gestural behaviors, representing a significant methodological breakthrough. Through his 2008 development of a social learning mechanism for humanoid robots, Matsumoto laid the groundwork for creating more adaptable and socially interactive robots capable of natural human interaction. His cumulative work has been cited over 89 times, reflecting its growing influence in both robotics and therapeutic intervention communities.