Claudia Muhl
Sociological robot research in progress.





In my research I address the problem of human interaction with communication robots. Integrating the range of concerned topics, my attempt is to contribute with a crossdisciplinary perspective on the social robot. Therefore, I work on the sitautional components of HRI, applying sociological concepts of action, behavior, and communication. As methodological perspective, I make use of the ethnomethodological approach.

The reciprocal percepience of both partners in an interaction system is depending on the selection of parameters which are taken into account. Context-aware systems enclose the fact of situatedness and embodiment by the means of reacting to factors from the surroundings, as perceived images or sound input. Though, these data are not hard facts but also are interpreted by the addressee. Each communicative perception therefore can be understood differently, depending on the relation that the partner selects. A robot automatically computes the sensor input and internally distributes this information, depending on the underlying attention mechanism, speech processor or object recoginition system. Whereas any human partner will dynamically attribute a multiple set of situational and individual factors and adapt to them, with regard to varying phenomena. Hence the technical functionality and complexity of the robot's architecture will influence it's behavior. Moreover the appearance of the robot effects on it's perceptional signals, furthermore the embeddedness in the social situation mutually influences the interaction with the human communication partner.






Publications


selected

Social
Engineering

HRI and social robotics

Analysis

Application of qualitative methods