Brian Scassellati
Biographic Data
| ID | 3446069 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian Scassellati |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian |
| FAMILY NAME | Scassellati |
| SIGNATURE | SCASSELLATI B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7671-7759 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 121 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
To Help or Not to Help
Robots are often designed to help, but help is not always helpful. In everyday situations, it is a socially delicate act: the right offer of help at the wrong moment can be intrusive, unnecessary, or even undermining. In this article, we challenge the prevailing assumption that robots should always offer help, prompting an essential discussion of how robots can discern when to offer help. We introduce a theoretical framework that enables robots t…
Ommie
This article discusses the design, development, and evaluation of Ommie , a novel socially assistive robot that supports deep breathing practices for the purposes of anxiety reduction. Research has shown that practicing deep breathing (breathing while extending one’s inhales, holds, and exhales) has a strong capacity to calm the autonomic nervous system and reduce anxiety. The robot’s primary function is to guide users through a series of deep br…
Long-Term Interactions with Social Robots
In the past two decades, the field of social robotics has undergone significant growth, witnessing a surge in long-term human–robot interaction (HRI) studies. This review paper provides an in-depth analysis of 120 long-term HRI studies conducted between 2003 and 2023, spanning 7 major domains including education, entertainment, and physical and mental health. We define “long-term” as studies deploying social robots with the same users for more th…
RoSI
A wide range of studies in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has shown that robots can influence the social behavior of humans. This phenomenon is commonly explained by the Media Equation. Fundamental to this theory is the idea that when faced with technology (like robots), people perceive it as a social agent with thoughts and intentions similar to those of humans. This perception guides the interaction with the technology and its predicted impact. …
School-age children are more skeptical of inaccurate robots than adults
Is Someone There or Is That the TV? Detecting Social Presence Using Sound
Social robots in the home will need to solve audio identification problems to better interact with their users. This article focuses on the classification between (a) natural conversation that includes at least one co-located user and (b) media that is playing from electronic sources and does not require a social response, such as television shows. This classification can help social robots detect a user’s social presence using sound. Social robo…
A Minority of One against a Majority of Robots
Studies have shown that people conform their answers to match those of group members even when they believe the group’s answer to be wrong [2]. In this experiment, we test whether people conform to groups of robots and whether the robots cause informational conformity (believing the group to be correct), normative conformity (feeling peer pressure), or both. We conducted an experiment in which participants (N = 63) played a subjective game with t…
Social robots for education
A review of social robots in education discusses expected outcomes, technical challenges, and directions for future research.
Social Eye Gaze in Human-Robot Interaction
This article reviews the state of the art in social eye gaze for human-robot interaction (HRI). It establishes three categories of gaze research in HRI, defined by differences in goals and methods: a human-centered approach, which focuses on people's responses to gaze; a design-centered approach, which addresses the features of robot gaze behavior and appearance that improve interaction; and a technology-centered approach, which is concentrated o…
Effects of form and motion on judgments of social robots׳ animacy, likability, trustworthiness and unpleasantness
One of robot designers׳ main goals is to make robots as sociable as possible. Aside from improving robots׳ actual social functions, a great deal of effort is devoted to making them appear lifelike. This is often achieved by endowing the robot with an anthropomorphic body. However, psychological research on the perception of animacy suggests another crucial factor that might also contribute to attributions of animacy: movement characteristics. In …
Robots for Use in Autism Research
Autism spectrum disorders are a group of lifelong disabilities that affect people's ability to communicate and to understand social cues. Research into applying robots as therapy tools has shown that robots seem to improve engagement and elicit novel social behaviors from people (particularly children and teenagers) with autism. Robot therapy for autism has been explored as one of the first application domains in the field of socially assistive r…
The Benefits of Interactions with Physically Present Robots over Video-Displayed Agents
Socially assistive robotics [Grand Challenges of Robotics]
Socially intelligent robotics is the pursuit of creating robots capable of exhibiting natural-appearing social qualities. Beyond the basic capabilities of moving and acting autonomously, the field has focused on the use of the robot's physical embodiment to communicate and interact with users in a social and engaging manner. One of its components, socially assistive robotics, focuses on helping human users through social rather than physical inte…
Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot
If we are to build human-like robots that can interact naturally with people, our robots must know not only about the properties of objects but also the properties of animate agents in the world. One of the fundamental social skills for humans is the attribution of beliefs, goals, and desires to other people. This set of skills has often been called a "theory of mind." This paper presents the theories of Leslie [27] and Baron-Cohen [2] on the dev…
The Benefits of Interactions with Physically Present Robots over Video-Displayed Agents
Effects of form and motion on judgments of social robots׳ animacy, likability, trustworthiness and unpleasantness
One of robot designers׳ main goals is to make robots as sociable as possible. Aside from improving robots׳ actual social functions, a great deal of effort is devoted to making them appear lifelike. This is often achieved by endowing the robot with an anthropomorphic body. However, psychological research on the perception of animacy suggests another crucial factor that might also contribute to attributions of animacy: movement characteristics. In …
Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot
If we are to build human-like robots that can interact naturally with people, our robots must know not only about the properties of objects but also the properties of animate agents in the world. One of the fundamental social skills for humans is the attribution of beliefs, goals, and desires to other people. This set of skills has often been called a "theory of mind." This paper presents the theories of Leslie [27] and Baron-Cohen [2] on the dev…
A Minority of One against a Majority of Robots
Studies have shown that people conform their answers to match those of group members even when they believe the group’s answer to be wrong [2]. In this experiment, we test whether people conform to groups of robots and whether the robots cause informational conformity (believing the group to be correct), normative conformity (feeling peer pressure), or both. We conducted an experiment in which participants (N = 63) played a subjective game with t…
Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot
If we are to build human-like robots that can interact naturally with people, our robots must know not only about the properties of objects but also the properties of animate agents in the world. One of the fundamental social skills for humans is the attribution of beliefs, goals, and desires to other people. This set of skills has often been called a "theory of mind." This paper presents the theories of Leslie [27] and Baron-Cohen [2] on the dev…
Socially assistive robotics [Grand Challenges of Robotics]
Socially intelligent robotics is the pursuit of creating robots capable of exhibiting natural-appearing social qualities. Beyond the basic capabilities of moving and acting autonomously, the field has focused on the use of the robot's physical embodiment to communicate and interact with users in a social and engaging manner. One of its components, socially assistive robotics, focuses on helping human users through social rather than physical inte…
The Benefits of Interactions with Physically Present Robots over Video-Displayed Agents
Robots for Use in Autism Research
Autism spectrum disorders are a group of lifelong disabilities that affect people's ability to communicate and to understand social cues. Research into applying robots as therapy tools has shown that robots seem to improve engagement and elicit novel social behaviors from people (particularly children and teenagers) with autism. Robot therapy for autism has been explored as one of the first application domains in the field of socially assistive r…
Effects of form and motion on judgments of social robots׳ animacy, likability, trustworthiness and unpleasantness
One of robot designers׳ main goals is to make robots as sociable as possible. Aside from improving robots׳ actual social functions, a great deal of effort is devoted to making them appear lifelike. This is often achieved by endowing the robot with an anthropomorphic body. However, psychological research on the perception of animacy suggests another crucial factor that might also contribute to attributions of animacy: movement characteristics. In …
Social Eye Gaze in Human-Robot Interaction
This article reviews the state of the art in social eye gaze for human-robot interaction (HRI). It establishes three categories of gaze research in HRI, defined by differences in goals and methods: a human-centered approach, which focuses on people's responses to gaze; a design-centered approach, which addresses the features of robot gaze behavior and appearance that improve interaction; and a technology-centered approach, which is concentrated o…
Social robots for education
A review of social robots in education discusses expected outcomes, technical challenges, and directions for future research.
A Minority of One against a Majority of Robots
Studies have shown that people conform their answers to match those of group members even when they believe the group’s answer to be wrong [2]. In this experiment, we test whether people conform to groups of robots and whether the robots cause informational conformity (believing the group to be correct), normative conformity (feeling peer pressure), or both. We conducted an experiment in which participants (N = 63) played a subjective game with t…
Is Someone There or Is That the TV? Detecting Social Presence Using Sound
Social robots in the home will need to solve audio identification problems to better interact with their users. This article focuses on the classification between (a) natural conversation that includes at least one co-located user and (b) media that is playing from electronic sources and does not require a social response, such as television shows. This classification can help social robots detect a user’s social presence using sound. Social robo…
RoSI
A wide range of studies in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has shown that robots can influence the social behavior of humans. This phenomenon is commonly explained by the Media Equation. Fundamental to this theory is the idea that when faced with technology (like robots), people perceive it as a social agent with thoughts and intentions similar to those of humans. This perception guides the interaction with the technology and its predicted impact. …
School-age children are more skeptical of inaccurate robots than adults
Ommie
This article discusses the design, development, and evaluation of Ommie , a novel socially assistive robot that supports deep breathing practices for the purposes of anxiety reduction. Research has shown that practicing deep breathing (breathing while extending one’s inhales, holds, and exhales) has a strong capacity to calm the autonomic nervous system and reduce anxiety. The robot’s primary function is to guide users through a series of deep br…
Long-Term Interactions with Social Robots
In the past two decades, the field of social robotics has undergone significant growth, witnessing a surge in long-term human–robot interaction (HRI) studies. This review paper provides an in-depth analysis of 120 long-term HRI studies conducted between 2003 and 2023, spanning 7 major domains including education, entertainment, and physical and mental health. We define “long-term” as studies deploying social robots with the same users for more th…
To Help or Not to Help
Robots are often designed to help, but help is not always helpful. In everyday situations, it is a socially delicate act: the right offer of help at the wrong moment can be intrusive, unnecessary, or even undermining. In this article, we challenge the prevailing assumption that robots should always offer help, prompting an essential discussion of how robots can discern when to offer help. We introduce a theoretical framework that enables robots t…
Robot (13 works) · Social Robot Interaction and HRI (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Artificial Intelligence (8 works) · Human–computer interaction (8 works) · Social robot (8 works) · Mobile robot (7 works) · Robot control (7 works) · Human–robot interaction (6 works)