RMPD 2014 - Special Session on Robots for Mental Potential Development

At present, a range of applications in which robots are used to provide assistance to human users through social, rather than physical interaction. These applications include social therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), education, social companionship, and social motivation. Such applications have been collectively referred to as socially assistive robotics. We propose a special session which focuses on multidisciplinary approaches for social therapy and education, combining technology development of socially assistive robots and/or ambient intelligence environment with empirical assessment of their effectiveness through field studies in human-robot interaction applicable to this particular domain. Advancement of related technologies accelerates the usage of the robots and interactive devices in human everyday life. With this session we would like to explore the most recent advancements in robots and interactive devices for social therapies, motivation and education. We also would like to search to establish the usefulness and efficacy of the robots and the interactive devices in these fields. We will encourage submissions on the interplay of creating technological artifacts that promote social interaction and investigating human factors that will increase the actual use and the positive experience of using the robots and interactive devices in therapeutic and educational settings.