Conflict and Reconciliation Processes Between Affective/Social Robots and Humans

Most research on affective computing relates to recognizing and classifying emotions, usually through facial or body expressions, linguistics, electroencephalograms or other biosignals. A variety of authors have pointed out that for social and affective robots to establish effective, deep and durable bonds with humans, they must emulate human interactions as closely as possible; however, there are aspects of human behavior and interactions, like disputes and resolutions, that have been left aside from the design of such robots. This article introduces a non-intrusive, low-cost system that allows robots to recognize and simulate affections and personality on the basis of human-robot actions, while also allowing robots to recognize and shape the human’s character and the nature of their relationship. It provides a system for robots to trigger and carry out conflict and reconciliation processes with humans.