Janie Busby Grant

Human beings possess a unique and highly evolved capacity to dynamically regulate their level of social presence in response to environmental cues, social norms, and contextual expectations—a capability that plays a crucial role in shaping Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Yet, its modulation remains an underexplored area in embodied robotic systems. This research advances the field by systematically redefining social presence within HRI and developing a novel framework for its dynamic modulation.

This thesis investigates the cognitive potential of embodied robotics, offering a novel perspective by interpreting robotic behaviour through the lens of human-like cognition. It addresses a key gap in current methodologies, which often assess isolated cognitive abilities without accounting for the inherently interconnected nature of cognition in intelligent systems.

Concurrent developments in robotic design and natural language processing (NLP) have enabled the production of humanoid chatbots that can operate in commercial and community settings. Though still novel, the presence of physically embodied social robots is growing and will soon be commonplace. Our study is set at this point of emergence, investigating people’s first impressions of a humanoid chatbot in a public venue.

The aged care industry is under pressure from stressors including increasing resident numbers and difficulty meeting staffing requirements. Robots may be able to support the industry by filling many vital roles, however it is currently unclear how successful implementation of robots in aged care can occur, and detailed in situ assessment and mapping of robotic deployment in these settings is lacking. The current case study examines early-stage implementation of robots at an aged care home in Australia, assessing logistical, technical and person factors.

This study explores the impact of appearance and speech on human perceptions of faces in human-robot interactions. Three videos were generated depicting the real face of an artist and two virtual versions of the same artist, with increasing resolution and fidelity. Each video was presented with and without speech, with matching levels of fidelity to the faces.

We describe the implementation and evaluation of a public interactive robotic art installation in a rehabilitation hospital. The project had two goals; to provide an enjoyable and novel artistic experience for the hospital community, and to better understand how human-centred robotics, particularly a receptive-focused intervention, might promote wellbeing and quality of life for members of hospital communities.

A plethora of commercial social robots and social robotics startups have risen over the last few years. At a cursory glance, most such robots are merely conversational agents, essentially offering a similar or subset of the capabilities of a smart communication device embodied in a mobile/semi-mobile robotic platform. This raises the question of the efficacy of such an approach.