Human robot social interaction framework based on emotional episodic memory

Abstract

Nowadays the application of robots are emerging in areas of modern life. It is expected we will be living in a new era in which robots such as socially interactive robots will make an important effect on our daily lives. Considering emotions play a critical role in human social communication, emotional episodes are necessary for human-robot social interactions. In this regard, we propose a framework that can form a social relationship between human and robot using an emotional episodic memory. Proposed framework enables personalized social interactions with each user by identifying the user and retrieving the matching episode in the memory. The interaction is not fixed, the emotional episodic memory is developmental through additional experiences with the user. The proposed framework is applied to an interactive humanoid robot platform, named Mybot to verify the effectiveness. As demonstration scenarios, photo shooting, and user identification and robot’s emotional reactions are used.