[CFP] ASIMOV 2026 @ ICSR 2026: Call for Papers - Adaptive Social Interaction based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI
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Giuseppe Palestra
May 5, 2026, 9:05:26 AM (yesterday) May 5
to ai...@aixia.it
*** WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT ***
[Apologies for multiple copies of this announcement]
******************************************************
Adaptive Social Interaction
based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI
ASIMOV 2026
London (UK), July 3, 2026
Held in conjunction with
the 18th International Conference on Social Robotics + Art
https://sites.google.com/view/asimov-icsr2026/
******************************************************
------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT DATES
------------------------------------------------------
- Deadline for Paper Submission: Monday, 25 May 2026
- Paper Acceptance Notification: Friday, 29 May 2026
- Camera Ready Paper Submission: Friday, 12 June 2026
- Main Conference Dates: July 1–4, 2026
- Workshop Date: Thursday, 3 July 2026 - 14:00 – 17:00
------------------------------------------------------
AIM AND SCOPE
------------------------------------------------------
The ability to understand and adapt to people’s mental models is a key objective for enabling natural, efficient, and successful human-robot interaction (HRI), in particular in human-centered scenarios where robots are expected to meet people’s social conventions. Theory of mind and mental models are largely investigated in human-computer interactions, however, it is still unclear what level of others’ mental states a robot should be aware of in order to communicate with people in a transparent and socially acceptable way. The ASIMOV workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to gather roboticists, psychologists, and philosophers and computer scientists to discuss a variety of current and new approaches aiming at endowing social robots with learning abilities, enhancing cognitive and social abilities based on mutual understanding.
SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT
The ASIMOV Workshop investigates how social robots can engage in meaningful, ethically aware, and cognitively grounded interactions with humans, particularly in sensitive contexts such as education, healthcare, and assistive scenarios. Despite the promise of social robots in such domains, users often remain cautious about employing them due to ethical, psychological, and safety concerns as well as a lack of trust in such technologies. Addressing these acceptability challenges requires considering not only individual psychological and behavioral factors, but also emergent group dynamics in the design of social interactions, integrating insights from ethics, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. Central to this exploration is the question of how robots can be designed and behave to respect and respond to human values, expectations, and vulnerabilities. To achieve natural and effective human-robot interaction (HRI), robots must be endowed with learning and real-time adaptation abilities to perceive and interpret users’ mental states, navigate group dynamics in teamwork scenarios, while explicitly taking into account social and ethical rules. Beyond functional alignment, we seek to understand how socio-cognitive architectures, adaptive behaviors, and affective signals can support morally appropriate engagement—avoiding manipulation, misunderstanding, or dehumanization. This requires not only technical innovation, but also a reflective framework that integrates perspectives from ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of mind. Recent research shows that these capabilities are essential to bridge the gap between user expectations and the robot’s actual behavior, enhancing mutual understanding, engagement, and interaction efficiency. Robots' acceptability increases when they can understand and meet people's expectations during HRI. By equipping robots with moral, social and cognitive skills, which may be integrated through AI supports, they can convey contextually appropriate affective and social signals in an intelligent and readable way. From the mutual comprehension of mental states, an effective HRI can emerge, allowing human partners to suspend disbelief and fostering trust, partnership, and acceptability.
OBJECTIVES
The ASIMOV Workshop brings together interdisciplinary experts in robotics, AI, cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy to explore the design of socially assistive robots that are cognitively competent in modeling both individual mental states and complex group dynamics, while being ethically informed and norm-aware. Focusing on sensitive domains such as education, healthcare, and assistive technologies, the workshop emphasizes integrating socio-cognitive architectures with normative frameworks to ensure robots respect human values, autonomy, and dignity. Key topics include individual and multi-user interaction modeling, moral agency, and mechanisms for real-time ethical adaptation, all aimed at fostering trustworthy, human-centered human-robot interaction grounded in moral psychology and philosophy of mind.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The workshop targets a broad and interdisciplinary audience, including researchers, practitioners, and students from social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioral robotics, and human–robot interaction (HRI). It particularly encourages the participation of PhD students and early-career researchers working on user modeling, developmental and lifelong learning, adaptive machine learning, generative and affect-aware language models, advanced control interfaces, and novel approaches to monitoring and interpreting internal states in humans and robots. The workshop offers an interactive and collaborative platform to exchange ideas, present innovative concepts, and foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. Participants will engage in discussions on embodiment, symbiotic long-term interactions, cognitive and affective adaptation, explainable AI, and personalized behavioral strategies, all aimed at shaping the next generation of socially intelligent robots that can interact with humans in dynamic, context-aware, and ethically responsible ways.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
Mental models in HRI
Human-aware perception–action loops
Embodied intelligence
Symbiotic HRI
Long-term social-aware interaction
Cognitive model adaptation for long-term interaction
Emotion, intention, and affect recognition
Empathy, Theory of Mind, and mutual affective understanding
Real-time monitoring of internal states and non-verbal cues
Multimodality in human–robot interaction
Robots with personality and online adaptive behavior
Short- and long-term personalization and developmental learning
Generative and affect-aware language models for adaptive interaction
Physiological monitoring, biofeedback, and BCI-enabled adaptive interaction
Explainable AI, objective evaluation metrics, and ethical considerations
Human partnership, trust, safety, and security in HRI
------------------------------------------------------
INVITED SPEAKERS
------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Kim Baraka, Department of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam (NL)
------------------------------------------------------
SUBMISSIONS
------------------------------------------------------
We welcome prospective participants to submit a paper (up to 6 pages) by sending an email to the organizers by clearly indicate "ASIMOV workshop" in the email subject.
Papers can be on research that the authors would like to discuss during the workshop, especially encouraging papers on new ideas or research that the authors plan to conduct.
It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout.Detailed instructions for paper submission are available on the conference website (https://icsr2026.uk/calls/).
LNCS style templates are also available on the Springer LNCS website.
Selected papers will be invited to submit an extended/revised version of the papers for a Book Series on Elsevier Journal.
It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout. LNCS style templates are available on the Springer LNCS website or on Overleaf. Each paper will receive two reviews. Accepted papers require that at least one of the authors register for the workshop.
All submitted papers will be reviewed by two reviewers. The abstracts of the accepted papers will appear on the workshop website.
Authors are requested to submit a PDF copy to sanzalone (at) univ-paris8.fr.
------------------------------------------------------
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
------------------------------------------------------
Salvatore M. Anzalone
Université Paris 8, France
Giuseppe Palestra
University of Bari, Italy
Lorenzo D'Errico
University of Naples Fedrico II, Italy
Maryam Alimardani
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Mariacarla Staffa
University of Naples Parthenope, Italy
This workshop is sponsored and partially founded by:
- RESTART - Italian National Project - Robot Enhanced Social Abilities
based on Theory of Mind for Acceptance of Robot in Assistive
Treatments, funded by the Italian Ministry of Universities and
Research —MIUR (D.D. no.861) (RESTART)
- PEPR O2R "Robotique Organique" AS3 (ANR-22-EXOD-007) - France 2030 program
------------------------------------------------------
CONTACTS
------------------------------------------------------
mariacar...@uniparthenope.it
[Apologies for multiple copies of this announcement]
******************************************************
Adaptive Social Interaction
based on user’s Mental mOdels and behaVior in HRI
ASIMOV 2026
London (UK), July 3, 2026
Held in conjunction with
the 18th International Conference on Social Robotics + Art
https://sites.google.com/view/asimov-icsr2026/
******************************************************
------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT DATES
------------------------------------------------------
- Deadline for Paper Submission: Monday, 25 May 2026
- Paper Acceptance Notification: Friday, 29 May 2026
- Camera Ready Paper Submission: Friday, 12 June 2026
- Main Conference Dates: July 1–4, 2026
- Workshop Date: Thursday, 3 July 2026 - 14:00 – 17:00
------------------------------------------------------
AIM AND SCOPE
------------------------------------------------------
The ability to understand and adapt to people’s mental models is a key objective for enabling natural, efficient, and successful human-robot interaction (HRI), in particular in human-centered scenarios where robots are expected to meet people’s social conventions. Theory of mind and mental models are largely investigated in human-computer interactions, however, it is still unclear what level of others’ mental states a robot should be aware of in order to communicate with people in a transparent and socially acceptable way. The ASIMOV workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to gather roboticists, psychologists, and philosophers and computer scientists to discuss a variety of current and new approaches aiming at endowing social robots with learning abilities, enhancing cognitive and social abilities based on mutual understanding.
SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT
The ASIMOV Workshop investigates how social robots can engage in meaningful, ethically aware, and cognitively grounded interactions with humans, particularly in sensitive contexts such as education, healthcare, and assistive scenarios. Despite the promise of social robots in such domains, users often remain cautious about employing them due to ethical, psychological, and safety concerns as well as a lack of trust in such technologies. Addressing these acceptability challenges requires considering not only individual psychological and behavioral factors, but also emergent group dynamics in the design of social interactions, integrating insights from ethics, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. Central to this exploration is the question of how robots can be designed and behave to respect and respond to human values, expectations, and vulnerabilities. To achieve natural and effective human-robot interaction (HRI), robots must be endowed with learning and real-time adaptation abilities to perceive and interpret users’ mental states, navigate group dynamics in teamwork scenarios, while explicitly taking into account social and ethical rules. Beyond functional alignment, we seek to understand how socio-cognitive architectures, adaptive behaviors, and affective signals can support morally appropriate engagement—avoiding manipulation, misunderstanding, or dehumanization. This requires not only technical innovation, but also a reflective framework that integrates perspectives from ethics, moral psychology, and philosophy of mind. Recent research shows that these capabilities are essential to bridge the gap between user expectations and the robot’s actual behavior, enhancing mutual understanding, engagement, and interaction efficiency. Robots' acceptability increases when they can understand and meet people's expectations during HRI. By equipping robots with moral, social and cognitive skills, which may be integrated through AI supports, they can convey contextually appropriate affective and social signals in an intelligent and readable way. From the mutual comprehension of mental states, an effective HRI can emerge, allowing human partners to suspend disbelief and fostering trust, partnership, and acceptability.
OBJECTIVES
The ASIMOV Workshop brings together interdisciplinary experts in robotics, AI, cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy to explore the design of socially assistive robots that are cognitively competent in modeling both individual mental states and complex group dynamics, while being ethically informed and norm-aware. Focusing on sensitive domains such as education, healthcare, and assistive technologies, the workshop emphasizes integrating socio-cognitive architectures with normative frameworks to ensure robots respect human values, autonomy, and dignity. Key topics include individual and multi-user interaction modeling, moral agency, and mechanisms for real-time ethical adaptation, all aimed at fostering trustworthy, human-centered human-robot interaction grounded in moral psychology and philosophy of mind.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The workshop targets a broad and interdisciplinary audience, including researchers, practitioners, and students from social and assistive robotics, cognitive and behavioral robotics, and human–robot interaction (HRI). It particularly encourages the participation of PhD students and early-career researchers working on user modeling, developmental and lifelong learning, adaptive machine learning, generative and affect-aware language models, advanced control interfaces, and novel approaches to monitoring and interpreting internal states in humans and robots. The workshop offers an interactive and collaborative platform to exchange ideas, present innovative concepts, and foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. Participants will engage in discussions on embodiment, symbiotic long-term interactions, cognitive and affective adaptation, explainable AI, and personalized behavioral strategies, all aimed at shaping the next generation of socially intelligent robots that can interact with humans in dynamic, context-aware, and ethically responsible ways.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
Mental models in HRI
Human-aware perception–action loops
Embodied intelligence
Symbiotic HRI
Long-term social-aware interaction
Cognitive model adaptation for long-term interaction
Emotion, intention, and affect recognition
Empathy, Theory of Mind, and mutual affective understanding
Real-time monitoring of internal states and non-verbal cues
Multimodality in human–robot interaction
Robots with personality and online adaptive behavior
Short- and long-term personalization and developmental learning
Generative and affect-aware language models for adaptive interaction
Physiological monitoring, biofeedback, and BCI-enabled adaptive interaction
Explainable AI, objective evaluation metrics, and ethical considerations
Human partnership, trust, safety, and security in HRI
------------------------------------------------------
INVITED SPEAKERS
------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Kim Baraka, Department of Computer Science at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam (NL)
------------------------------------------------------
SUBMISSIONS
------------------------------------------------------
We welcome prospective participants to submit a paper (up to 6 pages) by sending an email to the organizers by clearly indicate "ASIMOV workshop" in the email subject.
Papers can be on research that the authors would like to discuss during the workshop, especially encouraging papers on new ideas or research that the authors plan to conduct.
It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout.Detailed instructions for paper submission are available on the conference website (https://icsr2026.uk/calls/).
LNCS style templates are also available on the Springer LNCS website.
Selected papers will be invited to submit an extended/revised version of the papers for a Book Series on Elsevier Journal.
It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout. LNCS style templates are available on the Springer LNCS website or on Overleaf. Each paper will receive two reviews. Accepted papers require that at least one of the authors register for the workshop.
All submitted papers will be reviewed by two reviewers. The abstracts of the accepted papers will appear on the workshop website.
Authors are requested to submit a PDF copy to sanzalone (at) univ-paris8.fr.
------------------------------------------------------
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
------------------------------------------------------
Salvatore M. Anzalone
Université Paris 8, France
Giuseppe Palestra
University of Bari, Italy
Lorenzo D'Errico
University of Naples Fedrico II, Italy
Maryam Alimardani
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Mariacarla Staffa
University of Naples Parthenope, Italy
This workshop is sponsored and partially founded by:
- RESTART - Italian National Project - Robot Enhanced Social Abilities
based on Theory of Mind for Acceptance of Robot in Assistive
Treatments, funded by the Italian Ministry of Universities and
Research —MIUR (D.D. no.861) (RESTART)
- PEPR O2R "Robotique Organique" AS3 (ANR-22-EXOD-007) - France 2030 program
------------------------------------------------------
CONTACTS
------------------------------------------------------
mariacar...@uniparthenope.it
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