Sheffield Robotics Seminar - Dr Chaona Chen: Emotional Intelligence for Social Robots

Dr Chaona Chen, Ph.D, Lecturer in Robotics, School of Computer Science

Date: Friday 22nd November

Time: 12.00 - 13.00

Location: Pam Liversidge Building, Floor F, F12

Title: Emotional Intelligence for Social Robots: A Data-Driven Approach to Designing Robots’ Facial Expressions  

Abstract:  Social robots are increasingly being designed to interact naturally with humans, and a key aspect of this interaction is the robot's ability to generate realistic and recognisable facial expressions. Traditionally, social robots have relied on standardised emotional expressions, often based on the assumption that these expressions are universally recognized across different cultures. However, growing evidence suggests that this assumption does not hold universally. This mismatch in emotional perception limits the effectiveness of social robots in engaging users from diverse cultural backgrounds, reducing their potential for global deployment and interaction. My research aims to develop culturally valid facial expression models that account for cultural differences in emotion perception. My findings demonstrate that these culturally valid facial expression models not only improve the robot's emotional communication with participants from different cultural backgrounds, but also increase the perceived human-likeness of the robot's expressions. This research highlights the importance of integrating cultural sensitivity into the design of social robots, paving the way for more effective human-robot interaction across diverse cultural contexts.

Bio: Dr. Chaona Chen is currently a Lecturer in Robotics at the School of Computer Science, University of Sheffield. Before joining the University of Sheffield, she was a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow (2021-2024) and a postdoctoral researcher on an ERC-funded project (FaceSyntax, 2017-2021) in the School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on understanding human social communication and applying this knowledge to developing human-centred artificial intelligence and social robots.