Dear Colleagues, We are very pleased to invite you to attend the 2nd edition of *ASIMOV Workshop on **"Adaptive Social Interaction based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI"*. The Workshop will be held on the 13th of December in conjunction with the 14th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR2022 <https://www.icsr2022.it/>), 13-16 December 2022, Florence (Italy). If you intend to attend the Workshop, please and submit your paper by *November the 30th *via Easychair at this link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=asimov2022 . Registration to the workshop are managed by the conference organisation on the ICSR2022 <https://www.icsr2022.it/> website Furhter information about the workshop and how to participate with a contribution are below, or please visit ASIMOV 2022 website <https://sites.google.com/view/asimov2022/home> at https://sites.google.com/view/asimov2022/home *Hope to see you soon at ASIMOV 2022 in the beautiful Florence! * Organizers --------------------------------- Mariacarla Staffa, University of Naples Parthenope Alessandra Rossi, University of Naples Federico II Antonio Andriella, PAL Robotics Maryam Alimardani, Tilburg University ASIMOV 2022: Adaptive Social Interaction based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI Workshop hosted by the 14th Int. Conf. on Social Robotics Florence, Italy, December 13-16, 2022 Conference website https://sites.google.com/view/asimov2022/home Submission link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=asimov2022Abstract The ability of understanding and adapting to people’s mental models is a key objective for enabling natural, efficient and successful human-robot interaction (HRI), in particular in human-centered scenarios where robots are expected to meet people’s social conventions. However, even if theory of mind and mental models are largely investigated in human-computer interactions, it is still unclear what level of others’ mental states a robot should be aware of in order to communicate with people in a transparent and socially acceptable way. The ASIMOV workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to gather roboticists and computer scientists to discuss a variety of current and new approaches aiming at endowing social robots with learning abilities, enhancing cognitive and social abilities based on mutual understanding, mental model and Theory of Mind. SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT Endowing robots with learning and online adaptation abilities is a key objective for enabling natural and efficient human-robot interaction, especially in the areas of assistive, rehabilitation, and educational robotics. As Isaac Asimov, the famous Russian-American science-fiction writer, pointed out in one of his novels “The Complete Robot (1982)”, it is fundamental for humans and robots to adapt to each other in order to have a successful and efficient interaction. To this extent, one of the critical challenges in human-robot interaction is to design robots with learning abilities which would enable them to behave according to the following three criteria: efficiency, acceptability and security. In order for robots to fulfil these criteria, it is necessary for the robot and the human to understand each other’s intentions, beliefs and desires. The ability to interpret and adapt to users’ behaviour and mental states could help in solving the mismatch existing between expectations of robots (often elicited by the robot’s appearance) and their actual capabilities and, therefore, enhance efficiency. Indeed, a possible mismatch can lead to ambiguous perceptions and improper interpretation of robot’s actions and intentions by negatively affecting the interactions. Therefore, designing human-aware social interaction paradigms allow robots to automatically detect and correct inaccurate mental states held by users through adaptive behaviour. Additionally, recent research evidence that that robots’ acceptability increases when the robot is able to understand and meet people’s expectations (i.e., their mental models) during HRI. By giving basic socio-cognitive skills to robots, they can show contextually appropriate affective and social signals in an intelligent and readable way. From the mutual comprehension of mental states, an effective human-robot interaction can emerge, suspending the disbelief of human partners, allowing trust, partnership, and acceptability. Despite the recognized potential and usefulness of social robots for assistive, educational and entertainment purposes, people are still wary while interacting with them. In particular, their hesitations are connected to different aspects of HRI, including ethical and psychological concerns, and physical and security safety, such as privacy violation, physical harms, etc.. In this direction, it is essential to take into consideration the psychological and behavioural response of people who are sharing the environments with robots, and design social robots’ behaviours that can proactively plan, manage and execute its goals, and facilitate interaction at the same time. In tackling the above-mentioned challenges, this workshop aims to bring together theories and practices that advance social cognition and user awareness in HRI to enrich the mutual understanding between humans and the robots. This is especially desirable for socially assistive robots in the context of education, entertainment and especially in healthcare, where the target user groups often include vulnerable people (e.g., elderly people or children with diseases compromising attentional or emotional responses) and acceptability of the robots is of paramount importance. OBJECTIVES The workshop’s topics will be approached from a multidisciplinary perspective by inviting speakers with various expertise, including human-agent interaction, social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioural sciences, artificial intelligence, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. Specific attention will be given to the state-of-the-art methods in user modelling through evaluation of overt (e.g. behaviour and speech) and covert information (e.g. cognitive states and emotional reactions) using tools such as motion capture, eye-tracking, biosignals, etc. Target Audience This workshop is intended as a forum for a broad audience, which spans from social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioural robotics, and social awareness and explainability in HRI. The workshop should be a place to exchange opinions, to discuss innovative ideas and to get hints and suggestions on ongoing research, therefore contributing to tackle unresolved issues. The proposed topic brings together researchers working on user behaviour and intention detection, human-robot interaction, social and assistive robotics, control interfaces, learning, and ethical and safety issues in human-machine interaction, among others. A large scientific community is involved in such research fields. Submission Guidelines We welcome prospective participants to submit either full papers (up to 6 pages) or extended abstracts (up to 2 pages). Papers can be on research that the authors would like to discuss during the workshop, especially encouraging papers on new ideas or research that the authors plan to conduct. Possible topics of the submissions will cover a wide view of the state of the art. Workshop papers must clearly indicate that they are part of ASIMOV workshop. All material collected during the Workshop: video, slides, papers, etc. upon approval of the authors, will be made available on the workshop website. Important dates - Deadline for Paper Submission: *November 30th*, 2022 - Paper Acceptance Notification: December 6th, 2022 - Camera Ready Paper: December 10th, 2022 - Main Conference Date: December 13th–16th, 2022 - *Workshop Date: December 13th, 2022 * Templates and Procedure for Paper Submissions It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout. Detailed instructions for paper submission are available on the conference web site (https://www.icsr2022.it/paper-submission/). LNCS style templates are available on the Springer LNCS website. Each paper will receive two reviews. Accepted papers require that at least one of the authors register to the workshop. All submitted papers will be reviewed by two reviewers. The abstracts of the accepted papers will appear on the workshop website. - Authors will be able to submit a PDF copy through EasyChair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=asimov2022>. List of Topics Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: - Mental models in HRI - Human-aware perception-action loop - Emotion and intention recognition - Empathy and Theory of Mind in Robotics - Mutual affective understanding - Real-time monitoring of behaviour and mental states - Detection of non-verbal behavioural cues - Online adaptive behaviour - Acceptability and personalization - Physiological monitoring and biofeedback systems - BCI (brain-computer interfaces)-enabled adaptive interaction - Short- and Long-term personalisation - Human partnership and trust in HRI - Security and safety in HRI CommitteesOrganizing Committee - Mariacarla Staffa, University of Naples Parthenope (Italy), email: mariacarla.staffa@unipartenope.it - Alessandra Rossi, University of Napled Federico II (Italy), email: alessandra.rossi@unina.it - Antonio Andriella, Pal Robotics, Barcellona (Spain), email: antonio.andriella@pal-robotics.com - Maryam Alimardani, Tilburg University (The Netherlands), email: m.alimardani@tilburguniversity.edu Invited Speakers - Giulio Sandini (Italian institute of Technology, Italy) - Barbara Bruno (Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne, Switzerland) Publication Selected papers will be invited to submit an extended/revised version of the papers to the Special Issue "Social Robots for the Human Well-Being" on the mdpi Robotics Journal ( https://www.mdpi.com/journal/robotics/special_issues/SRHWB) (Author Benefits: Open Access:— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions. High Visibility: indexed within Scopus, ESCI (Web of Science), dblp, Inspec, and other databases. Journal Rank: CiteScore - Q1 (Control and Optimization)). Venue The Workshop will be hosted by ICSR2022 Conference that will be held at *Chamber of Commerce *in Florence, which is located in the city center. It is just behind Uffizi gallery, and, at a walking distance, where are located the main attractions of Florence, like Ponte Vecchio, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Piazza della Signoria, Piazzale Michelangelo, and Boboli garden. Address: Piazza dei Giudici, 3, 50122 Firenze (FI), Italy Contact All questions about submissions should be emailed to the organizing committee members