James E.Young

Projects

• Adapting The Laban Effort System To Design Affect-Communicating Locomotion

  Affective Flying-Robot Motions via the Laban Effort SystemIn this project, we leverage locomotion paths of a flying robot as a communcation channel and adapt the Laban Effort System, a standard…

• Understanding Robot Expectation Formation And Discrepancy

  Understanding Robot Expectation Formation and DiscrepancyProject PublicationsExpecting the Expected: An Analytical Framework to Examine People’s Expectations of RobotsJames M. Berzuk, Ceilidh Simon, and James E. Young. 2025. Expecting the expected:…

• Would You Do As A Robot Commands?

  Would You Do as a Robot Commands?Would you do as a robot commands? Robots are beginning to play a larger role in society, finding their way into hospitals, the military,…

• A Simulated Robot Versus A Real Robot: People’s Empathic Response

  A Simulated Robot versus a Real Robot: People’s Empathic ResponseIn designing and evaluating human-robot interactions and interfaces, researchers often use a simulated robot due to the high cost of robots…

• Low Frequency Sound In Social HRI

  Low Frequency Sound in Social HRIInfrasound, low frequency sound below 20Hz, is not normally heard or felt consciously by people. However, evidence suggests that the presence of infrasound may induce…

• Inspector Baxter

  Inspector BaxterReal robots are in real workplaces, working with people right now. Every day at work, people engage with and use complicated social and professional communication skills to keep co-workers…

• How To Walk A Robot

  How to Walk a RobotA Dog-Leash Human-Robot InterfaceHuman-robot interaction (HRI) tasks in everyday environments will require people to direct or lead a robot as they walk in close proximity to…

• Mental Health In Online Communities

  Mental Health in Online CommunitiesMany students experience mental health issues while in university. Disclosing such issues, to a counselor, or friends and family can help cope with mental illness. Recent…

• A Touchscreen Interface For Controlling A Commercial Robot Arm

  A Touchscreen Interface for Controlling a Robotic ArmIn this project, we designed a touchscreen interface for the remote control of a multi-degree of freedom robot arm to reduce task load…

• Sociological Context Of Human Robot Interaction

  Sociological Context of Human-Robot InteractionThis project explores how various facets of the social context around interacting with robots influences human-robot interaction and its practictioners, spanning from re-evaluating technology acceptance models,…

• PaintBoard

  PaintBoard: Prototyping Interactive Character Behaviors by Painting StoryboardsThis project proposes a novel method for the rapid prototyping of believable interactive characters; more specifically, we target the characters’ interactive behaviors –…

• Social Robots To Encourage Play For Children With Disabilities

  Social Robots to Encourage Play for Children with DisabilitiesVideoProject PublicationsThe Role of Technology in Enhancing Play for Children with Disabilities: Perspectives from ParentsDabiri Golchin, M., Ripat, J., & Young, J.…

• Gendering Human Robot Interaction

  Gendering Human-Robot InteractionIn this project, we investigate how a person's gender impacts their attitudes towards and interaction with robots. Due to limited gender-related knowledge in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), we explore…

• Social Interfaces In Teleoperation

  Social Interfaces in TeleoperationSocial Human-Robot Interaction has demonstrated that people are very good at understanding social signals from robots. Use of these social signals has improved the interaction experience, and…

• Exploring Animal Inspired Human Robot Interaction

  A Dog Tail for RobotsIn this project, we designed a robotic dog tail prototype to leverage people's general understanding of dogs and their tails (e.g., tail wagging means happy) for…

• Rapport Building And Hindering Behaviors With A Collaborative Robot

  Rapport Strategies With a Collaborative RobotModern industrial robots are increasingly moving toward collaborating with people on complex tasks as team members, and away from working in isolated cages that are…

• Playing The Trust Game With Robots

  Playing the ‘Trust Game’ with Robots: Social Strategies and ExperiencesWe present the results of a pilot study that investigates if and how people judge the trustworthiness of a robot during…

• Describing Human Robot Dialog Designs

  Improving Human-Robot Dialogue InteractionsProject PublicationsToward Designing a Toolkit for Intuitive Design of Backchanneling Behaviour in Social RobotsS. R. M. Barrett and J. E. Young, “Toward Designing a Toolkit for Intuitive…

• Crooked Camera

  And He Built a Crooked CameraThe limitations of human perception make it impossible to grasp four spatial dimensions simultaneously. Visualization techniques of four-dimensional (4D) geometrical shapes rely on visualizing limited…

• Culturally Adaptive Social Robots

  Culturally Adaptive Social RobotsCulture can be defined as the attitudes and social norms common to a group of people. It underlies various aspects of our social behaviour and affects our…

• Visual Team State Indicators

  Visual Team State IndicatorsIn team teleoperation, maintaining awareness of robot team members and their robotic states is important for efficient and successful team coordination. Team teleoperation can be achieved with…

• Social Robots For Addressing Loneliness

  Social Robots to Address LonelinessA growing area of human-robot interaction explores how robots, for example as companions, can be used to help people manage loneliness. However, we do not yet…