Modeling social signals and contexts in robotic socially believable behaving systems

Abstract

There is a need for a holistic perspective when considering aspects of natural interactions with robotic socially believable behaving systems, that must account of the cultural, social, physical, and individual (the context) features that shape interactional exchanges. Context (the physical, social and organizational context) rules individual’s social conducts and provide means to render the world sensible and interpretable in the course of everyday activities. Contextual aspects of interactional exchanges make any of it unique and requiring different interpretations and actions. A robotic socially believable systemmust be able to discriminate among the infinities of contextual instances and assign to each their unique meaning. This book reports on the last research efforts in making “natural” human interactional exchanges with social robotic autonomous systems devoted to improve the quality of life of their end-users while assisting them on several needs, ranging from educational settings, health care assistance, communicative disorders, and any disorder impairing either their physical, cognitive, or social functional activities.