Social Intelligence and Human-Robot Collaboration


Contents

1. Introduction

Our research is grounded in the insight that human intelligence is deeply social. We build on evidence from cognitive science and human factors research showing how humans coordinate through shared task models, implicit signals, and subtle behavioral cues, enabling them to align strategies and adapt seamlessly to one another.

Among all aspects of intelligence, social intelligence remains the most elusive aspect of machine intelligence. While robots have made strides in perception and manipulation, they still struggle to collaborate effectively with humans in dynamic, mixed-initiative settings. We believe that effective collaboration requires reasoning over shared abstractions, embedding human expectations into robot behavior, and generating predictable, legible interaction dynamics.

2. Publications

2025 International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

Eindhoven, Netherlands, August 25-29

Employing Laban Shape for Generating Emotionally and Functionally Expressive Trajectories in Robotic Manipulators [PDF] [BIB]

Srikrishna Bangalore Raghu, Clare Lohrmann, Akshay Bakshi, Jennifer Kim, Jose Caraveo Herrera, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2025 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence [IJCAI]

Montreal, Canada, August 16-22

Implicitly Aligning Humans and Autonomous Agents through Shared Task Abstractions [PDF] [BIB]

Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Miguel Aroca-Ouellette, Katharina von der Wense, Alessandro Roncone

2025 RSS Workshop on Human-in-the-Loop Robot Learning: Teaching, Correcting, and Adapting

Los Angeles, California, USA, June 25

CRED: Counterfactual Reasoning and Environment Design for Active Preference Learning [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2024 IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication [RO-MAN]

Pasadena, CA, USA, August 26-30

Eyes on the Game: Deciphering Implicit Human Signals to Infer Human Proficiency, Trust, and Intent [PDF] [BIB]

Nikhil Hulle, Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Anthony J. Ries, Jake Brawer, Katharina von der Wense, Alessandro Roncone

2024 ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction [THRI]

Generating Pattern-Based Conventions for Predictable Planning in Human-Robot Collaboration [PDF] [BIB]

Clare Lohrmann, Maria Stull, Alessandro Roncone, Bradley Hayes

2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]

Boulder, CO, USA, March 11-14

Workspace Optimization Techniques to Improve Prediction of Human Motion During Human-Robot Collaboration [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Matthew B. Luebbers, Alessandro Roncone, Bradley Hayes

Best Technical Paper Nominee!!

2024 7th International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality at HRI '24 [VAM-HRI]

Boulder, CO, USA, March 11-14

Improving Robot Predictability via Trajectory Optimization Using a Virtual Reality Testbed [PDF] [BIB]

Clare Lohrmann, Ethan Berg, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2024 HRI'24 Workshop on Causal Learning for Human-Robot Interaction

Boulder, CO, USA, March 11-14

Causal Influence Detection for Human Robot Interaction [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Himanshu Gupta, Wei Jiang, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2024 7th International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality at HRI '24 [VAM-HRI]

Boulder, CO, USA, March 11-14

Stereoscopic Virtual Reality Teleoperation for Human Robot Collaborative Dataset Collection [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Matthew B. Luebbers, Alessandro Roncone, Bradley Hayes

2023 AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction [AI-HRI]

Arlington, VA, USA, Oct 25-27

Towards A Natural Language Interface For Flexible Multi-Agent Task Assignment [PDF] [BIB]

Jake Brawer, Kayleigh Bishop, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]

London, UK, May 28-June 02

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Ad Hoc Teaming [PDF] [BIB]

Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Miguel Aroca-Ouellette, Upasana Biswas, Katharina Kann, Alessandro Roncone
Extended abstract

2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]

Stockholm, Sweden, March 13-16

Interactive Policy Shaping for Human-Robot Collaboration with Transparent Matrix Overlays [PDF] [BIB]

Jake Brawer, Debasmita Ghose, Kate Candon, Meiying Qin, Alessandro Roncone, Marynel Vázquez, and Brian Scassellati

Best Technical Paper Award!!

2023 6th International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality at HRI '23 [VAM-HRI]

Stockholm, Sweden, March 13

Improving Human Legibility in Collaborative Robot Tasks through Augmented Reality and Workspace Preparation [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Matthew B. Luebbers, Alessandro Roncone, Bradley Hayes

2023 Workshop on Language-Based AI Agent Interaction with Children [AIAIC]

Los Angeles, USA, February 21

Designing an AI Partner for Jigsaw classrooms [PDF] [BIB]

Jie Cao, Rachel Dickler, Marie Grace, Jeffrey B. Bush, Alessandro Roncone, Leanne M. Hirshfield, Marilyn A. Walker, Martha S. Palmer

2022 IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication [RO-MAN]

Naples, Italy, August 29

Bilevel Optimization for Just-in-Time Robotic Kitting and Delivery via Adaptive Task Segmentation and Scheduling [PDF] [BIB]

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Kayleigh Bishop, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2022 Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Conversational AI @ ACL 2022

Dublin, Ireland, May 27

Open-Domain Dialogue Generation: What We Can Do, Cannot Do, And Should Do Next [PDF] [BIB]

Katharina Kann, Abteen Ebrahimi, Joewie J. Koh, Shiran Dudy, Alessandro Roncone

2022 MIT Press

Introduction to Autonomous Robots: Mechanisms, Sensors, Actuators, and Algorithms

Nikolaus Correll, Bradley Hayes, Christoffer Heckman and Alessandro Roncone

2022 Frontiers in Robotics and AI

How to be Helpful? Supportive Behaviors and Personalization for Human-Robot Collaboration [PDF] [BIB]

Olivier Mangin, Alessandro Roncone, and Brian Scassellati

2021 ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI], Workshop on Robots for Learning

Boulder, CO, U.S.A., March 12

Teaching Grounded Reading Skills via an Interactive Robot Tutor [PDF] [BIB]

Kayleigh "Kaleb" Bishop, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

2019 2nd ICRA International Workshop on Computational Models of Affordance in Robotics

Montreal, Canada, May 20-24

An Affordance-based Action Planner for On-line and Concurrent Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly

Francesca Stramandinoli, Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, Francesco Nori, and Brian Scassellati

2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]

Madrid, Spain, October 1-5

Situated Human-Robot Collaboration: predicting intent from grounded natural language [PDF] [BIB]

Jake Brawer, Olivier Mangin, Alessandro Roncone, and Brian Scassellati

2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]

Madrid, Spain, October 1-5

Preference-Based Assistance Prediction for Human-Robot Collaboration Tasks [PDF] [BIB]

Elena Corina Grigore, Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, and Brian Scassellati

2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]

Madrid, Spain, October 1-5

The HRC Model set for Human-Robot Collaboration Research [PDF] [BIB]

Sofya Zeylikman, Sarah Widder, Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, and Brian Scassellati

2018 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]

Stockholm, Sweden, July 11-13

Predicting Supportive Behaviors for Human-Robot Collaboration [PDF] [BIB]

Elena Corina Grigore, Olivier Mangin, Alessandro Roncone, and Brian Scassellati
Extended abstract

2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]

Singapore, Singapore May 29-June 3

Transparent Role Assignment and Task Allocation in Human Robot Collaboration [PDF] [BIB]

Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, and Brian Scassellati

2016 International Conference on Social Robotics [ICSR]

Kansas City, MO, U.S.A., November 1-3

Physiologically Inspired Blinking Behavior for a Humanoid Robot [PDF] [BIB]

Hagen Lehmann, Alessandro Roncone, Ugo Pattacini, and Giorgio Metta