ARSO 2023 Special Session: Towards Empathic Agents for Psychological and Physical Assistance

This Special Session will be held at the 19^th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Its Social Impacts (ARSO 2023), to be held in Berlin, Germany from 5–7 June 2023.

One of the growing trends in social robotics is their use as socially assistive agents, i.e., agents that assist via social interaction. Application areas of such agents include the after-care management of patients coming out of neurological disorders such as depression, or the assistance to the elderly who might be dealing with loneliness, cognitive decline, or physical disability. When considering human health professionals, regardless of the assistive goal pursued, real-time awareness of the patient’s physical and psychological status seems to always play a key role in the caregiver’s decision-making process.

This session aims to bring together sociological and technical perspectives and concerns to advance research in socio-empathic assistive agents and foster this community’s interdisciplinarity.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Perception and modeling human behaviors to inform interventions
• Methods and strategies for empathic decision making 
• User-driven behavior design 
• Participatory design approach for socio-empathic agents
• Reflection on values and norms in socio-technical contexts

Key Dates and Deadlines: 

Initial Paper Submission Deadline: 31 January 2023

Notification of Paper Acceptance Notification: 1 April 2023

Final Paper Submission Deadline: 30 April 2023

Organizers:

Jauwairia Nasir, jauwairia.nasir@epfl.ch, EPFL/University of Augsburg

Barbara Bruno, barbara.bruno@epfl.ch, EPFL

Linda Nierling, linda.nierling@kit.edu, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

If you have any questions, please contact jauwairia.nasir@epfl.ch.