Alan Wagner

Researcher: Alan Wagner

As robots move out of the lab and into people's homes and workplaces it will become increasingly important that these machines act in a manner which reflects the system's particular connection to the human with which it is interacting. Kelley and Thibaut described an interpersonal relationship as particular connection accreting from continued interaction among two people. A relationship affords both individuals the possibilty of modeling and predicting the behaviors of the other individual in situations not yet encountered. In the future, it will be important for robots to be capable of recognizing and reasoning not just about cooperative, friendly relationships, but also about competitive or antagonistic ones as well. This project explores methods that will allow a robot to characterize its relationship with a person and, potentially, use its interactive behavior to influence the development of the relationship.