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. People

3. Publications

Thesis/Book
Journal Article
Conference Paper
Workshop Paper

ReSeeding Latent States for Sequential Language Understanding

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

Conference Paper 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing [EMNLP] PDF BIB

Gaze-informed signatures of trust and collaboration in human-autonomy teams

Anthony J. Ries, Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Alessandro Roncone, Ewart J. de Visser

Journal Article 2025 Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans PDF BIB

Implicitly Aligning Humans and Autonomous Agents through Shared Task Abstractions

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

Conference Paper 2025 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence [IJCAI] PDF BIB

Toward Human-Inspired AI: Identifying Data, Building Structures, and Hypothesis-Driven Learning

Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette
PhD dissertation

Thesis/Book 2025 University of Colorado Boulder PDF BIB

Employing Laban Shape for Generating Emotionally and Functionally Expressive Trajectories in Robotic Manipulators

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

Conference Paper 2025 International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication [RO-MAN] PDF BIB

CRED: Counterfactual Reasoning and Environment Design for Active Preference Learning

Yi-Shiuan Tung, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

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

Towards Zero-Shot Coordination between Teams of Agents: The N-XPlay Framework

Ava Abderezaei, Chi-Hui Lin, Joseph Miceli, Naren Sivagnanadasan, Stéphane Aroca-Ouellette, Jake Brawer, Alessandro Roncone

Workshop Paper 2025 RSS Workshop on Scalable and Resilient Multi-Robot Systems: Decision-Making, Coordination, and Learning PDF BIB

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

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

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

Generating Pattern-Based Conventions for Predictable Planning in Human-Robot Collaboration

Clare Lohrmann, Maria Stull, Alessandro Roncone, Bradley Hayes

Journal Article 2024 ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction [THRI] PDF BIB

Workspace Optimization Techniques to Improve Prediction of Human Motion During Human-Robot Collaboration

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

Best Technical Paper Nominee!!

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

Improving Robot Predictability via Trajectory Optimization Using a Virtual Reality Testbed

Clare Lohrmann, Ethan Berg, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

Workshop Paper 2024 HRI Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality [VAM-HRI] PDF BIB

Causal Influence Detection for Human Robot Interaction

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

Workshop Paper 2024 HRI Workshop on Causal Learning for Human-Robot Interaction PDF BIB

Stereoscopic Virtual Reality Teleoperation for Human Robot Collaborative Dataset Collection

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

Workshop Paper 2024 HRI Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality [VAM-HRI] PDF BIB

Towards A Natural Language Interface For Flexible Multi-Agent Task Assignment

Jake Brawer, Kayleigh Bishop, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

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

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Ad Hoc Teaming

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

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

Interactive Policy Shaping for Human-Robot Collaboration with Transparent Matrix Overlays

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

Best Technical Paper Award!!

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

Improving Human Legibility in Collaborative Robot Tasks through Augmented Reality and Workspace Preparation

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

Workshop Paper 2023 HRI Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality [VAM-HRI] PDF BIB

Designing an AI Partner for Jigsaw classrooms

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

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

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

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

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

Open-Domain Dialogue Generation: What We Can Do, Cannot Do, And Should Do Next

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

Workshop Paper 2022 Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Conversational AI @ ACL 2022 PDF BIB

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

Nikolaus Correll, Bradley Hayes, Christoffer Heckman and Alessandro Roncone

Thesis/Book 2022 MIT Press Code

How to be Helpful? Supportive Behaviors and Personalization for Human-Robot Collaboration

Olivier Mangin, Alessandro Roncone, and Brian Scassellati

Journal Article 2022 Frontiers in Robotics and AI PDF BIB

Teaching Grounded Reading Skills via an Interactive Robot Tutor

Kayleigh "Kaleb" Bishop, Bradley Hayes, Alessandro Roncone

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

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

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

Situated Human-Robot Collaboration: predicting intent from grounded natural language

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

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

Preference-Based Assistance Prediction for Human-Robot Collaboration Tasks

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

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

The HRC Model set for Human-Robot Collaboration Research

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

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

Predicting Supportive Behaviors for Human-Robot Collaboration

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

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

Transparent Role Assignment and Task Allocation in Human Robot Collaboration

Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, and Brian Scassellati

Conference Paper 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA] PDF BIB

Physiologically Inspired Blinking Behavior for a Humanoid Robot

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

Conference Paper 2016 International Conference on Social Robotics [ICSR] PDF BIB