Emotions in Robots: Embodied Interaction in Social and Non-Social Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Whether they are considered discrete or dimensional, emotions are 'embodied' phenomena. In recent years, emotion theory has evolved to acknowledge the role of the body in perception and action. The embodied agent does not play a merely passive role in emotion/affective processing—its bodily activity is not simply the output triggered by a ‘feed-forward’ cognitive appraisal. Rather, the body itself, in interaction with its external environment, influences how real, or imagined, environmental stimuli are perceived and acted upon. The body behaviorally orients and acts, and internally physiologically ‘prepares’ in relation to its external environment. Affective processing and ‘computation’ is, from this perspective, a phenomenon for which brain, body and physical environment are inextricably entangled and is in this sense considered ‘embodied’.

Today, we see a shift towards social robots that act in human environments and to a larger degree need to act in relation to social and emotional aspects.  There are at least three areas in which ‘embodied’ implementations of emotion (and affective) processes can enhance robotic performance in human environments: i) improved human-interactor experience, ii) facilitated competence, e.g., in joint human-robot tasks, iii) safety—in relation to robot-environment 'awareness'. Enhancements in the aforementioned areas require robots to have such emotion (and affective) processes shaped by the interactions they have in their social and non-social environments. For example, a nursing robot or a teacher-assistant robot must not only interact safely with its environment, it should act in a way that communicates care and respect for patients, and that supports the social bounds necessary for the task, but also respects its own goals and requirements for adaptive agency (e.g., maintaining battery levels, flexibly carrying out its various tasks). Internal (e.g., homeostatic) and external (e.g., social) signals should be embedded in the functional behaviors of robots, rather than ‘bolted on’ to the behavioral repertoire in order for the robots to retain credibility and competence in their social and non-social interactions. The mode of embodiment of the emotion-guided robot entails not only its physical dimension regarding how and what it senses and appears to human interactors but also its internal homeostatic aspects that regulate its goals and those very same interactions.

In this Special Issue, we are organizing a research topic on the theme “Emotions in Robots:  Embodied Interaction in Social and Non-Social Environments”. We invite contributors whose research interests concern implementation of emotional aspects that respect and facilitate the interactive requirements of the robot in human (social and non-social) environments.   

Dr. Robert Lowe
Guest Editor

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