The role of mental model and shared grounds in human-robot interaction

This paper investigates the role of mental model and shared grounds in human-robot interaction and the relation between them for efficient communication as well as collaboration between human and robot. We tried to conceptualize 3 way relationship among human, robot and world, and to link them in terms of the construction of shared grounds. Based on our conceptual framework of shared grounds, we developed a mediate interface that allows human users to communicate and coordinate with a robot using multimodal icon symbols. A pilot experiment was carried out to examine how people acquire a mental model about 'what' and 'how' a robot can do, and what it knows. The experimental results show that, for the efficient and cooperative human-robot interaction (HRI), a proper linkage between human and robot is required to share perceptual experience, object or procedural knowledge on a task.