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Topic · Social Psychology

Social Robot Interaction and HRI

Social Robot Interaction and HRI is a research topic within Social Psychology. Science Explorer counts 14k research works in it since 1955. 10.0% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the interaction between humans and social robots, focusing on topics such as socially assistive robotics, anthropomorphism, elderly care, emotion perception, cognitive developmental robotics, and the uncanny valley. It delves into the challenges and opportunities in creating meaningful and effective relationships between humans and robots for various applications.

  • Socially Assistive Robotics
  • Human-Robot Interaction
  • Anthropomorphism
  • Elderly Care
  • Emotion Perception
  • Cognitive Developmental Robotics
  • Uncanny Valley
  • Robot Companionship
  • Human Perception of Robots
  • Interactive Virtual Humans
Research works
14k
fractional, since 1955
In the world top 10%
1.4k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.0%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+70%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
25% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Social Robot Interaction and HRI

Which countries lead Social Robot Interaction and HRI research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1k and 843 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1k works
  2. 2 China 843 works
  3. 3 Japan 525 works
  4. 4 Germany 418 works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 305 works
  6. 6 Italy 264 works
  7. 7 India 257 works
  8. 8 South Korea 176 works
  9. 9 France 154 works
  10. 10 Canada 151 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 24.7%China: 20.5%Japan: 12.8%Germany: 10.2%6 others listed: 31.8%25%largest
United States1,014 · 24.7%China843 · 20.5%Japan525 · 12.8%Germany418 · 10.2%6 others listed1,308 · 31.8%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Social Robot Interaction and HRI research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Social Robot Interaction and HRI research, followed by Tsinghua University and The University of Tokyo.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 48 works
  2. 2 Tsinghua UniversityChina 36 works
  3. 3 The University of TokyoJapan 34 works
  4. 4 KTH Royal Institute of TechnologySweden 33 works
  5. 5 The University of OsakaJapan 29 works
  6. 6 Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 25 works
  7. 7 Cornell UniversityUnited States 25 works
  8. 8 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 24 works
  9. 9 University of MichiganUnited States 23 works
  10. 10 Italian Institute of TechnologyItaly 22 works

Who are the leading researchers in Social Robot Interaction and HRI?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Social Robot Interaction and HRI include Yann LeCun, Li Fei-Fei and Trevor J. Darrell.

  1. 1 Yann LeCun United States 256k citations
  2. 2 Li Fei-Fei United States 225k citations
  3. 3 Trevor J. Darrell United States 206k citations
  4. 4 Herbert A. Simon United States 179k citations
  5. 5 Chris Frith United Kingdom 175k citations
  6. 6 Jitendra Malik United States 170k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Social Robot Interaction and HRI?

The most cited paper in Social Robot Interaction and HRI is "ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System" (Morgan Quigley, 2009), with 7,166 citations. Next come "An Experiment in Linguistic Synthesis with a Fuzzy Logic Controller" (5,630) and "IEMOCAP: interactive emotional dyadic motion capture database" (3,844).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System Morgan Quigley · International Conference on Robotics and Automation Conference paper 2009 7,166
2 An Experiment in Linguistic Synthesis with a Fuzzy Logic Controller Ebrahim H. Mamdani, S. ASSILIAN · International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Aug 1999 5,630
3 IEMOCAP: interactive emotional dyadic motion capture database Carlos Busso, Murtaza Bulut, Chi-Chun Lee et al. · Language Resources and Evaluation 4 Nov 2008 3,844
4 Measurement Instruments for the Anthropomorphism, Animacy, Likeability, Perceived Intelligence, and Perceived Safety of Robots Christoph Bartneck, Dana Kulić, Elizabeth A. Croft et al. · International Journal of Social Robotics Open access 19 Nov 2008 3,185
5 A survey of socially interactive robots Terrence Fong, Illah Nourbakhsh, Kerstin Dautenhahn · Robotics and Autonomous Systems Open access 28 Feb 2003 3,159
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Social Robot Interaction and HRI research done?

The largest centres of Social Robot Interaction and HRI research in 2022-now are Tokyo (Japan), Beijing (China), Seoul (South Korea) and Shanghai (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Genoa.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 TokyoJapan 198 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 163 works
  3. 3 SeoulSouth Korea 92 works
  4. 4 ShanghaiChina 81 works
  5. 5 LondonUnited Kingdom 59 works
  6. 6 KyotoJapan 56 works
  7. 7 Hong KongChina 51 works
  8. 8 SingaporeSingapore 47 works
  9. 9 StockholmSweden 46 works
  10. 10 GuangzhouChina 45 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. GenoaIT · 38.0 works12×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Social Robot Interaction and HRI than the world average.

See Social Robot Interaction and HRI on the map

Where is the best place to study Social Robot Interaction and HRI?

Among universities, judged by research, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Carnegie Mellon University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 17%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Johns Hopkins Univer…Hong Kong Polytechni…KTH Royal Institute …Carnegie Mellon Univ…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1KTH Royal Institute of TechnologySweden 70.913.2%17.6×33 +100.5%
2Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 68.216.6%4.5×19 +220.6%
3Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 64.312.9%12.1×25 +5.1%
4Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 60.738.4%1.4×11 +287.7%
5University of MichiganUnited States 60.618.2%3.1×23 +275.6%
6Cornell UniversityUnited States 60.411.1%3.8×25 +20.0%
7Tsinghua UniversityChina 59.611.0%3.2×36 +314.4%
8Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUnited States 58.312.7%4.8×17 +13.9%
9University of CambridgeUnited Kingdom 57.320.0%2.5×15 +433.7%
10University of British ColumbiaCanada 56.315.9%2.9×17 +69.0%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Social Robot Interaction and HRI, country by country

Is Social Robot Interaction and HRI research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 70% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Social Robot Interaction and HRI.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Social Robot Interaction and HRI as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.018% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%Social Robot Interaction and HRI0.031% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Social Robot Interaction and HRI over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Social Robot Interaction and HRI9.8% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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