Situated Interactions with Embodied Agents (SITE)

 
SITE is a research group within the LUCS Robotic Group investigating interactions between (embodied) agents – humans, robots, children – in a variety of social contexts. We seek to understand how embodiment, in its different functions, forms, conceptions, shapes (and is being shaped) how inter-actants’ dynamically perceive, understand and position themselves and the other in interaction, through the coordination of movements, gestures, communication and affective displays moment-by-moment. We aim to explore the boundaries of intersubjective sociality particularly in those cases where subjectivity is either not fully developed (as in children) or artificially designed (as in social robots); and how intersubjective sense-making practices and expectations are re-negotiated in those cases, bringing new moral and ethics perspectives in the picture. Our research privileges qualitative micro-analytical methods and interdisciplinary work at the crossroads between psychology, social robotics, dynamic systems and ecological approaches, ethnomethodology, philosophy, data science and critical and feminist studies.

SITE is coordinated by Dr. Valentina Fantasia.