Our ABS - Artificial Biosignals project was launched at the beginning of the year as a “seed” project of the research cluster Media, Minds Machine. The project is investigating whether human-robot interaction (HRI) can be improved by representing the “mental state” of a robot. Based on the “Theory of Mind”, internal signals of robot agents are to be represented by an external graphical representation.

The Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states to other people; it is crucial for effective social interaction. The scientific question behind the project is whether visualizing the “mental state” of the robot (e.g. CPU load, power consumption) can simulate processes that take place in human-human interaction and thus improve the mapping of the ToM to the robot, resulting in an improvement in interaction with robots in terms of sympathy, trust and credibility.

By taking the ToM into account in the development of robots, more natural, intuitive and socially adapted interactions between humans and robots should be evoked.

The people responsible for this project are Robert Porzel and Iddo Wald. Good luck, Robert and Iddo!