Learning from demonstration (LfD) approaches
have garnered significant interest for teaching social robots a
variety of tasks in healthcare, educational, and service domains
after they have been deployed. These LfD approaches often
require a significant number of demonstrations for a robot to
learn a performant model from task demonstrations. However,
requiring non-experts to provide numerous demonstrations for
a social robot to learn a task is impractical in real-world
applications. In this paper, we propose a method to improve
the sample efficiency of existing learning from demonstration
approaches via data augmentation, dynamic experience replay
sizes, and hierarchical Deep Q-Networks (DQN). After validating
our methods on two different datasets, results suggest that our
proposed hierarchical DQN is effective for improving sample
efficiency when learning tasks from demonstration. In the future,
such a sample-efficient approach has the potential to improve
our ability to apply LfD approaches for social robots to learn
tasks in domains where demonstration data is limited, sparse,
and imbalanced.

Efficacy of a Human-Robot Collaborative Problem Solving Activity to Improve Computational Thinking Skills

**Session Chairs: Maryam Alimardani, Mariacarla Staffa**

Long Session II: Mental Models of the Human User in Social HRI

technical paper

**31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication**
 This conference is a leading forum where state-of-the-art innovative results, the latest developments as well as future perspectives relating to robot and human interactive communication are presented and discussed.
 
 The conference covers a wide range of topics related to Robot and Human Interactive Communication, involving theories, methodologies, technologies, empirical and experimental studies. Papers related to the study of robotic technology, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, human factors, ethics and policies, interaction-based robot design and other topics related to human-robot interaction are welcome.
 
 **CONFERENCE THEME:**
 Social, asocial, and antisocial robots
 
 Robots are starting to populate our lives: at work, in our homes, hotels, shops. However, not everybody is comfortable with robots finding a place in society. For example, people may be afraid that robots will replace humans in their jobs. This belief is exacerbated by the media that, on one side, raise expectations of robots’ capabilities, while amplifying fears and worries on the other side.
 
 In the next years, due to the increasing request for interaction with people in social environments, academic research and market analyses predict that robots will become more and more “social”. But, at the same time, robots may incur the risk of being perceived as “asocial” as their pervasiveness in everyday environments may become an obstacle to social interaction between humans. Or they may even be rejected as “antisocial” if researchers do not take care to develop robots that behave according to the customs and habits of the communities where they are expected to operate.
 
 To prevent this from happening, robotic researchers can no longer take the luxury of being mere technicians. They must be capable of addressing all the challenges raised by future robot-populated communities in a multidisciplinary way. They need to share their knowledge with the public to make people aware of what robots really are, what expectations we can have from them, the risks we may incur, and the possible mitigation plans.
 
 While being open to any kind of contribution related to Human-Robot Interactive Communication, the RO-MAN 2022 conference will emphasize these aspects of robotic research. How can we create robots capable of being welcomed as our assistants and companions in society while, at the same time, not being perceived as “asocial” or “antisocial?” How can we create robots perceived as facilitators of the natural development of human beings and communities, rather than obstacles?
 
 Contributions from different disciplines, not exclusively related to technological development, will be welcomed as crucial to pave the way to global acceptance of future robots with an informed attitude.
 
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IEEE RO-MAN 2022

31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication
This conference is a leading forum where state-of-the-art innovative results, the latest developments as well as future perspectives relating to robot and human interactive communication are presented and discussed.

Alexandra Chin

1

Presentations

Efficacy of a Human-Robot Collaborative Problem Solving Activity to Improve Computational Thinking Skills