Date: Aug. 20 2025
Venue: OD TEK Seminar room (Ø7-610-1), University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Denmark.
Speakers: Kerstin Fischer & Johanna Seibt
Touch is currently a frontier topic in interdisciplinary robotics research. It plays a vital role in various robotic applications across fields such as collaborative work, healthcare, therapy, and physical instruction. However, enabling meaningful robotic touch presents challenges that go beyond technical implementation. What kinds of haptic interaction are desirable and permissible from robots? How is touch interpreted by users in different social contexts? How can touch support and shape social interaction with robots?
This workshop invites participants to explore how touch interactions relate to perceptions of robots as social agents. To date, little is understood about how the material and temporal aspects of robot touch, in combination with the socio-cultural context, influence people’s perceptions of robots as social agents, and the mental models formed of the type of social agent interacted with (e.g., human-like versus animal-like). The human-robot interaction (HRI) community has often relied on the theoretical construct of “anthropomorphizing” to study these perceptions. However, neither the quantitative measures commonly used in HRI research for investigating how people “anthropomorphize” robots (e.g., RoSAS, Godspeed questionnaires) nor the uncritical adoption of the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) hypothesis, are suitable for providing insight into how robot touch influences the human perception of robots (see Damholdt et al 2021).
In this workshop we want to explore whether two recently developed novel approaches for a detailed and systematic description of human perceptions of robots can support the empirical investigation and provide a deeper understanding of robot touch:
- The “Depiction Model” (developed by Kerstin Fischer and Herbert H. Clark) is the hitherto best developed theoretical framework for a differentiated description of the complex interpretational processes by which humans make sense of robots during interaction
- The “OASIS” framework (developed by Johanna Seibt, C. Vestergaard, and M. F. Damholdt) also aims to capture such processes of meaning-making, with a focus on “sociomorphing” (i.e., the ascription of (simulations of) capabilities for social coordination, that may or may not result from specifically human capacities).
Both frameworks come with tools and tutorials for how to apply them in empirical research, as detailed in background literature including:
Fischer, K.: Tracking Anthropomorphizing Behavior in Human-Robot Interaction. J. Hum.-Robot Interact. 11, 4:1-4:28 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3442677
Clark, Herbert H. & Fischer, Kerstin (2023). Social robots as depictions of social agents. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46, 1-65. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X22000668
Seibt, Johanna, C. Vestergaard, and M. F. Damholdt, “OASIS: A Human-Centered Descriptive Framework for Human-Robot Interactions,” in Introducing Robophilosophy: Philosophy of, for, and by Social Robotics, Cambridge, UNITED STATES: MIT Press, 2024. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1taeTJL3Dat1KXVIDZChaGdKpka_Zb8uT/view?usp=sharing
Seibt, J. Classifying Forms and Modes of Co-Working in the Ontology of Asymmetric Social Interactions (OASIS), 2018 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wfAjL7rwvSyT_ww6zcRcGJKR1l7MSbHq/view?usp=sharing
Damholdt MF, Quick OS, Seibt J, Vestergaard C, Hansen M. A Scoping Review of HRI Research on ‘Anthropomorphism’: Contributions to the Method Debate in HRI. International Journal of Social Robotics. 2023;15(7):1203–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-023-01014-z
The workshop will begin with two talks introducing the respective theoretical frameworks. Participants will then engage in collaborative group work to apply the frameworks to selected empirical examples of human-robot touch interaction. The workshop concludes with a facilitated discussion to collectively reflect on the insights and limitations of each framework in understanding touch in HRI.
Workshop Objectives:
- To relate the core ideas and tools of the Depiction Model and the OASIS framework to the study of robot touch and its role in shaping perceptions of robots in interaction.
- To examine the methodological challenges of empirically investigating the phenomenology of human-robot touch (i.e., to discuss methods of “heterophenomenology”).
Key Questions:
- How does the mechanical, experiential, and symbolic design of touch affect people’s perception of a robot in interaction?
- In what ways does the material and kinematic design of robot touch influence perceptions of sociality? Do we have reason to think that the design of robot touch influences which social skills (social coordination capabilities) are attributed to the robot?
- To what extent does the social context influence the experience of specific touch interactions with a robot and the perception of the robot post-interaction?
- Can cognitive science research undergird a strong role for robot touch in the formation of perceptions of robots (e.g., research on the uncanny valley)?
- If robot touch exerts a strong influence on the impression formed in the meeting with a robot, how can robot touch be designed and used systematically (supported by either one or both of the descriptive frameworks) to influence this perception for functional and ethical purposes (e.g., forestalling inappropriate emotional attachment, enhancing acceptance of robots in rehabilitation contexts, etc.)?
Schedule:
- 10:00 – 10:10 Welcome and Introduction
- 10:10 – 10:50 Talk + Q&A: Kerstin Fischer
- 10:50 – 10:55 Break
- 10:55 – 11:35 Talk + Q&A: Johanna Seibt
- 11:35 – 12:20 Lunch
- 12:20 – 12:30 Introduction to Collaborative Group Work
- 12:30 – 13:30 Collaborative Group Work
- 13:30 – 14:30 Discussion of Outcomes of Group Work
- 14:30 – 14:40 Closing Remarks
Registration
Participation is free of charge. To register, please email: touchingrobotics@gmail.com (Kindly indicate any dietary restrictions for lunch. Questions can also be directed to this email.)
We invite academics, researchers, practitioners, early-career researchers, and PhD students working with or interested in robot touch as an interdisciplinary topic across engineering, robotics, the humanities, the social sciences, art, and design.
Organizers
· Jonas Jørgensen (University of Southern Denmark)
· Kerstin Fischer (University of Southern Denmark)
· Johanna Seibt (Aarhus University)
Acknowledgements
This workshop is organized as part of the DFF Humanities Exploratory Research Network “Robot Touch”. Supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) (Grant no.: 3186-00027B).
