Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing research field with many application areas that could have a big impact not only economically, but also on the way we live and the kind of relationships we may develop with machines. Due to its interdisciplinary nature different views and approaches towards HRI need to be nurtured. This symposium will provide a platform to discuss collaboratively recent findings and challenges in HRI. Different categories of submissions are encouraged that reflect the different types of research studies that are being carried out. The symposium will encourage a diversity of views on HRI and different approaches taken. In the highly interdisciplinary research field of HRI, a peaceful dialogue among such approaches is expected to contribute to the synthesis of a body of knowledge that may help HRI sustain its creative inertia that has drawn to HRI during the past 10 years many researchers from HCI, robotics, psychology, the social sciences, and other fields.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

# Developments towards robot companions
# User-centred robot design
# Robots in personal care and health care
# Robots in search and rescue
# Sensors and interfaces for HRI
# Human-aware robot perception
# Dialogue and multi-modal human-robot interaction
# Robot architectures for socially intelligent robots
# HRI field studies in naturalistic environments
# Robot assisted therapy
# Robots in HRI collaborative scenarios
# Robots in schools and in other educational environments
# Robots as personal assistants and trainers
# Robot and human personality
# New methods and methodologies to carry out and analyze human-robot interaction
# Robots as companions and helpers in the home
# Robots as assistive technology
# Long-term or repeated interaction with robots
# Creating relationships with robots
# Expressiveness in robots
# Sustaining the engagement of users
# Personalizing robots and HRI interfaces
# Human-robot teaching
# Robots that learn socially and adapt to people
# User experience in HRI
# User needs and requirements for HRI
# Robots as autonomous companions
# Robots as remote-controlled tools
# Embodied interfaces for smart homes
# Ethnography and field studies
# Cross-cultural studies

Note, articles that are specifically addressing ethical issues in HRI are encouraged to submit to the AISB09 Symposium on “Killer robots or friendly fridges: the social understanding of Artificial Intelligence”, and may consider to attend both symposia which will run back to back.

The symposium encourages submissions in any of the following categories. The submission should clearly state which category the article falls under:

*N* Completed empirical studies reporting novel research findings
In this category we encourage submissions where a substantial body of findings has been accumulated based on precise research questions or hypotheses. Such studies are expected to fit within a particular experimental framework (e.g. using qualitative or quantitative evaluation techniques) and the reviewing of such papers will apply relevant (statistical and other) criteria accordingly. Findings of such studies should provide novel insights into human-robot interaction studies.

*E* Exploratory studies
Exploratory studies are often necessary to pilot and fine-tune the methodological approach, procedures and measures. In a young research field such as HRI with novel applications and various robotic platforms, exploratory studies are also often required to derive a set of concrete research questions or hypothesis, in particular concerning issues where there is little related theoretical and experimental work. Although care must be taken in the interpretation of findings from such studies, they may highlight issues of great interest and relevance to peers.

*S* Case studies
Due to the nature of many HRI studies, a large-scale quantitative approach is often neither feasible nor desirable. However, case study evaluation can provide meaningful findings if presented appropriately. Thus, case studies with only one participant, or a small group of participants, are encouraged if they are carried out and analyzed in sufficient depth.

*P* Position papers
While categories N, E and S require reporting on HRI studies or experiments, position papers can be conceptual or theoretical, providing new interpretations of known results. Also, in this category we consider papers that present new ideas without having a complete study to report on. Papers in this category will be judged on the soundness of the argument presented, the significance of the ideas and the interest to the HRI community.

*R* Replication of HRI studies
To develop as a field, HRI findings obtained by one research group need to be replicated by other groups. Without any additional novel insights, such work is often not publishable. Within this category, authors will have the opportunity to report on studies that confirm or disconfirm findings from experiments that have already been reported in the literature. This category includes studies that report on negative findings.

*D* Live HRI Demonstrations
Contributors may have an opportunity to provide live demonstrations (live or via Skype), pending the outcome of negotiations with the local organization team. The demo should highlight interesting features and insights into HRI. Purely entertaining demonstrations without significant research content are discouraged.

If authors feel that their particular paper does not fit any of the above mentioned categories, then they should indicate this when submitting their paper so that the reviewing process can take this into consideration.
Symposium Chair
Kerstin Dautenhahn, Adaptive Systems Research Group, School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, UK (use K.Dautenhahn "@" herts "." ac "." uk for any inquiries regarding the workshop)
Submission of Contributions
We invite unpublished, original work as extended abstracts (up to 3 pages) or full papers of up to 8 pages (double column). In category *D* we invite one page descriptions detailing the demo and its associated research questions. Please send the PDF submissions to K.Dautenhahn "@" herts "." ac "." uk (files bigger than 2MB will not be accepted). All submissions will be peer reviewed.
Proceedings
Authors of accepted contributions will be asked to prepare the final versions (up to 8 pages) for inclusion in the symposium proceedings. A special journal issue will be considered and/or a book publication.
Important Dates

# 5th January 2009 : Submission deadline
# 2th February 2009: Deadline for notifications sent to authors
# 23rd February 2009 : Camera read copies due
# 8-9 April 2009: Symposium