Psychology

Are Social Robots Effective in Robot-Assisted Interventions for Social Anxiety?

Are Social Robots Effective in Robot-Assisted Interventions for Social Anxiety?

Last month, the University of Waterloo (Samira Rasouli, Garima Gupta, Elizabeth Nilsen & Kerstin Dautenhahn) published a paper on the effectiveness of social robots for clinicians and patients in Robot-Assisted Interventions for Social Anxiety. They used MiRo and a range of social robots in their study.

Engineering a brain for MiRo - Part 2

What does a model of a brain actually look like? The answer is that they come in many, many forms. For example, some scientific groups work at a very detailed level, trying to understand how individual neurons, or groups of neurons, work to perform the functions that form the building blocks of behaviour.

Engineering a brain for MiRo - Part 1

MiRo was created to sense the world and then act on it. In this two part blog post, we are asked Consequential Robotics CTO Dr Ben Mitchinson to talk us through the origins of MIRO’s biomimetic brain.

Meet Katie! CqR's Newest Lead Researcher

Welcome Katie, we’re excited to have you on board! Katie joins us as the Lead Researcher who will be working on enhancing the MiRo-E robot user experience. Click through to read about Katie in her own words.

Are friends electric? The benefits and risks of human-robot relationships

Are friends electric? The benefits and risks of human-robot relationships

Social robots that can interact and communicate with people are growing in popularity for use at home and in customer-service, education, and healthcare settings. Although growing evidence suggests that co-operative and emotionally aligned social robots could benefit users across the lifespan, controversy continues about the ethical implications and their potential harms. In this condensed post, Professor Prescott and Professor Robillard highlight the benefits and risks of human-robot relationships.