HRI2022 EU meet-up
As the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2022, or HRI2022 for short, was forced to move from an in-person conference to a virtual only conference, we decided to offer an opportunity for the HRI community to physically meet in Barcelona on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 March 2022.
The meet-up is an academic event offering an in-person experience of the HRI2022 conference. As the HRI conference is forced to be virtual for a third year in a row, we feel that a real-life event is long overdue. Participants will largely travel in from across Europe, but anyone who meets the travel requirements of Spain is welcome.
- Watch a selection of keynotes and oral presentations.
- Meet and network with colleagues from across the region.
- Dive in and out of live sessions at the HRI2022 conference.
- Join global networking events related to HRI2022.
- Discuss research in an informal atmosphere and enjoy offline time with fellow researchers.
Details on the venue are being finalised, but there will be an opportunity to follow the conference on a large screen in a comfortable room, with ample opportunity for scientific brainstorms and discussions, and for catching up with former colleagues and fellow researchers - all while respecting COVID-related restrictions.

Programme (subject to minor changes)
Wednesday 9 March 2022
9:00 - 9:30 Doors open, registration and welcome
9:30-10:30 Opening, followed by coffee + setting up posters
10:30-11:30 (LIVE) Keynote Friederike Eyssel - What’s Social about Social Robots? A Psychological Perspective
11:30-12:30 Video session 1
- Mixed-Method Long-Term Robot Usage: Older Adults’ Lived Experience of Social Robots (Anastasia K.Ostrowski, Cynthia Breazeal, Hae Won Park)
- alt.HRI: Robotic Improvisers: Rule-Based Improvisation and Emergent Behaviour in HRI (Irene Alcubilla Troughton, Kim Baraka, Koen Hindriks, Maaike Bleeker)
- Video: How to Make People Think You’re Thinking if You’re a Drawing Robot: Expressing Emotions Through the Motions of Writing (Avital Dell’Ariccia, Alexandra Bremers, Johan Michalove, Wendy Ju)
- “And then what happens?” Promoting Children’s Verbal Creativity Using a Robot (Maha Elgarf, Natalia Calvo-Barajas, Patrícia Alves-Oliveira, Giulia Perugia, Ginevra Castellano, Christopher Peters, Ana Paiva)
- Short contribution: PointIt: A ROS Toolkit for Interacting with Co-located Robots using Pointing Gestures (Gabriele Abbate, Alessandro Giusti, Antonio Paolillo, Boris Gromov, Luca Gambardella, Andrea-Emilio Rizzoli, Jérôme Guzzi)
- Learning Socially Appropriate Robo-waiter Behaviours through Real-time User Feedback (Emily McQuillin, Nikhil Churamani, Hatice Gunes)
12:30-12:45 Presentation of Barcelona’s UPC IRI lab by Guillem Alenya
12:45-14:00 Lunch (self-catering)
14:00-15:30 Video session 2
- Memory-Based Personalization for Fostering a Long-Term Child-Robot Relationship (Mike E.U. Ligthart, Mark Neerincx, Koen Hindriks)
- Video: Demonstration of a Robot Receptionist with Multi-party Situated Interaction (Meriam Moujahid, Bruce Wilson, Helen Hastie, Oliver Lemon)
- Norm-Breaking Responses to Sexist Abuse: A Cross-Cultural Human Robot Interaction Study (Katie Winkle, Ryan Blake Jackson, Gaspar Isaac Melsión, Drazen Brscic, Iolanda Leite, Tom Williams)
- Inclusive’R’Stories: An Inclusive Storytelling Activity with an Emotional Robot (Cristiana Antunes, Isabel Neto, Filipa Correia, Ana Paiva, Hugo Nicolau)
- Short contribution: A New VR Kitchen Environment for Recording Well Annotated Object Interaction Tasks (Michael Koller, Timothy Patten, Markus Vincze)
- Automatic Frustration Detection Using Thermal Imaging (Youssef Mohamed, Giulia Ballardini, Maria Teresa Parreira, Séverin Lemaignan, Iolanda Leite)
- Face on a Globe: A Spherical Robot that Appears Lifelike Through Smooth Deformations and Autonomous Movement (Daisuke Iizawa, Shunji Yamanaka)
- MIND MELD: Personalized Meta-Learning for Robot-Centric Imitation Learning (Mariah Schrum, Erin Hedlund, Nina Moorman, Matthew Gombolay)
- alt.HRI: Children’s Perspectives of Advertising with Social Robots: A Policy Investigation (Daniella DiPaola, Anastasia K. Ostrowski, Rylie Spiegel Kate Darling, Cynthia Breazeal)
15:30-15:45 Eurecat research activities in Robotics and HRI by Daniel Serrano
15:45-16:30 Coffee break + poster session
16:30-17:30 Keynote Leila Takayama - Putting Human-Robot Interaction Research into Design Practice
17:30-18:00 Walk to PAL Robotics
18:00-20:00 Lab tour at PAL Robotics + finger food
Thursday 10 March 2022
9:00 - 9:30 Doors open
9:30 - 10:30 Keynote Hiroshi Nittono - The Psychology of “Kawaii” and Its Implications for Human-Robot Interaction
10:30-11:00 Coffee break + poster session
11:00-12:30 Video session 3
- Correct Me If I’m Wrong: Using Non-Experts to Repair Reinforcement Learning Policies (Sanne van Waveren, Christian Pek, Jana Tumova, Iolanda Leite)
- Short contribution: A New VR Kitchen Environment for Recording Well Annotated Object Interaction Tasks (Michael Koller, Timothy Patten, Markus Vincze)
- alt.HRI: Promoting Children’s Critical Thinking Towards Robotics through Robot Deception (Maria Luce Lupetti, Maarten Van Mechelen)
- A Social Robot for Improving Interruptions Tolerance and Employability in Adults with ASD (Rebecca Ramnauth, Emmanuel Adeniran, Timothy Adamson, MichalALewkowicz, Rohit Giridharan, Caroline Reiner, Brian Scassellati)
- Refilling Water Bottles in Elderly Care Homes With the Help of a Safe Service Robot (Cagatay Odabasi, Florenz Graf, Jochen Lindermayr, Mayank Patel, Simon D Baumgarten, Birgit Graf)
- Learning Gaze Behaviors for Balancing Participation in Group Human-Robot Interactions (Sarah Gillet, Maria Teresa Parreira, Marynel Vázquez, Iolanda Leite)
- Better than Us: The Role of Implicit Self-Theories in Determining Perceived Threat Responses in HRI (D. D. Allan, Andrew J. Vonasch, Christoph Bartneck)
- It Will Not Take Long! Longitudinal Effects of Robot Conflict Resolution Strategies on Compliance, Acceptance and Trust (Franziska Babel, Philipp Hock, Johannes Kraus, Martin Baumann)
- The Shape of Our Bias: Perceived Age and Gender in the Humanoid Robots of the ABOT Database (Giulia Perugia, Stefano Guidi, Margherita Bicchi, Oronzo Parlangeli)
- Why do we follow robots? An experimental investigation of conformity with robot, human and hybrid majorities (Lisa Masjutin, Jessica K. Laing, Günter W. Maier)
12:30-14:00 Lunch (self-catering)
14:00-15:30 Video session 4
- Exploring Machine-like Behaviors for a Socially Acceptable Robot Navigation in Elevators (Danilo Gallo, Shreepriya Gonzalez-Jimenez, Antonietta Maria Grasso, Cecile Boulard, Tommaso Colombino)
- A Taxonomy of Functional Augmented Reality for Human-Robot Interaction (Ornnalin Phaijit, Wafa Johal, Mohammad Obaid, Claude Sammut)
- Short contribution: Jaco: An Offline Running Privacy-aware Voice Assistant (Daniel Bermuth, Alexander Poeppel, Wolfgang Reif)
- Who’s Laughing NAO? Examining Perceptions of Failure in a Humorous Robot Partner (Haley N Green, Md Mofijul Islam, Shahira Ali, Tariq Iqbal)
- Mind the Machines: Applying Implicit Measures of Mind Perception in Social Robotics (Zhenni Li, Leonie Terfurth, Eva Wiese, Joshua Pepe Woller)
- REGROUP: A Robot-Centric Group Detection and Tracking System (Angelique Taylor, Laurel D. Riek)
- Having The Right Attitude: How Attitude Impacts Trust Repair in Human-Robot Interaction (Connor Esterwood, Lionel Peter Robert)
- A Novel Architectural Method for Producing Dynamic Gaze Behavior in Human-Robot Interactions (Gordon Briggs, Meia Chita-Tegmark, Evan Krause, Matthias Scheutz)
- HRI Carryover Effect: Can Interactions With Robots Influence Subsequent Human-Human Interactions? (Hadas Erel, Elior Carsenti, Oren Zuckerman)
- Not All Who Wander Are Lost: A Localization-Free System for In-The-Wild Mobile Robot Deployments (Amal Nanavati, Nick Walker, Lee Taber, Christoforos Mavrogiannis, Leila Takayama, Maya Cakmak, Siddhartha Srinivasa)
- Short contribution: Projecting Robot Navigation Paths: Hardware and Software for Projected AR (Zhao Han, Jenna Parrillo, Alexander Wilkinson, Holly A. Yanco, Tom Williams)
- Revisiting Human-Robot Teaching and Learning Through the Lens of Human Concept Learning Theory (Serena Booth, Sanjana Sharma, Sarah Chung, Julie Shah, Elena L. Glassman)
15:30-16:00 Coffee break + poster session
16:00-17:00 Video session 5
- You’re delaying my task?! Impact of Task Order and Motive on Perceptions of a Robot (Elizabeth Jeanne Carter, Laura M. Hiatt, Stephanie Rosenthal)
- Teacher, Teammate, Subordinate, Friend: Generating Norm Violation Responses Grounded in Role-based Relational Norms (Ruchen Wen, Zhao Han, Tom Williams)
- Perceptions of Cognitive and Affective Empathetic Statements by Socially Assistive Robots (Christopher Birmingham, Ashley Perez, Maja Mataric)
- Configuring Humans: What Roles Humans Play in HRI Research (Hee Rin Lee, EunJeong Cheon, Chaeyun Lim, Kerstin Fischer)
- More than words: A Framework for Human-Robot Dialog Designs (James M Berzuk, James E. Young)
- Cognitively Assistive Robots at Home: HRI Design Patterns for Translational Science (Alyssa Kubota, Dagoberto Cruz-Sandoval, Soyon Kim, Elizabeth Twamley, Laurel D. Riek)
17:00-17:30 Walk to the beach via Rambla de Poblenou
17:30-19:00 Social time at the beach
19:00 Close + self-organised dinner in Barcelona
Fees
Attendance to the meet-up is free for the participants. However, you must
have registered to the main conference (either via a publication fee if you have
a paper, or via a regular registration) before being able to register for the EU
meet-up.
Registration
You can register for the event. Note that capacity is limited, so early registration is encouraged.
The HRI EU meet-up is kindly sponsored by PAL Robotics and Eurecat. If you wish to contribute to this event in one form or another: helping towards the cost of the organisation through running research projects through to giving a helping hand with practical matters, then please get in touch with the organisers.



Organisers
Venue
The meet-up will take place at Ca l’Alier, a beautifully redesigned building in the Poblenou neighbourhood.
Link on Google Maps.
Travel
Barcelona is easily reached by air, rail or road. If you do fly into Barcelona, there are several options to get from and to the airport of Barcelona to the city center including bus, metro, train and taxi. Use the Aena website to find out more about public transport..
Accommodation
Barcelona offers a wide range of accommodation, from cheap and cheerful hostels to upmarket hotels. The meet-up venue is located in the Poblenou neighbourhood. We compiled a list of relatively affordable and nearby hotels, but can also recommend the usual websites to find suitable hotels.
Chat with others
When you register you will receive an invitation to join the Slack channel. If you wish to get into touch with others who are interested in joining or with people who will participate, feel free to use this Slack channel. Note that you cannot use this channel unless you have been invited.
Covid-19 restrictions
Please find here all the information regarding current Covid-19 measures applying to passengers travelling to Barcelona’s airport.
Please find here the current Covid-19 restrictions in the city of Barcelona as of today. The restrictions might change by the time you arrive in Barcelona, however, the updates should be directly reflected in the said link.
Restaurants
We do not foresee lunch or dinner, however there are many restaurants close to the venue catering for all kinds of budgets and dietary requirements. For a limited list see this map.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this HRI meet-up relate to the HRI2022 conference?
The HRI2022 conference itself will take place fully virtually. The Barcelona event is a physical meeting during the virtual conference, but organised independently, where a set of colleagues come together to jointly take part in the virtual conference, have discussions, network, and enjoy the city.
How do you deal with the time difference?
HRI2022 will be largely based on pre-recorded talks, so we do not have to get up at the crack of dawn to watch live streams. If there are live events, we will see if we can join them from Barcelona. The HRI2022 is trying hard to accommodate all different time zones in their programme.
What registrations will be needed to take part in the Barcelona meet-up?
You will need to register for the HRI EU meet-up and if you have a contribution at HRI2022 you will need a registration for that conference as well. The organisation is entirely separate (although we are in touch with the HRI2022 general chairs about our initiative), and the fees will be entirely separate as well. The HRI EU meet-up fee covers the venue and catering, while the HRI2022 conference fee covers all expenses related to the virtual conference and publication of papers.
Each attendee will be given the opportunity to present a poster at the HRI EU meet-up, with poster boards available throughout the event. This could be a poster of an accepted HRI2022 paper, or other results which you would like to discuss with the other attendees. Just email Tony Belpaeme (tony.belpaeme@ugent.be) and/or Séverin Lemaignan (severin.lemaignan@pal-robotics.com) for an invitation letter. Note that invitation letters will only be provided if you have a link to HRI research, this can be evidenced through publications, a brief case for support, or a CV.
What about the Workshop days?
Workshops will be organised on Monday 7 and Friday 11 March 2022, these dates fall outside the dates of the HRI EU meet-up. We will only have access to the booked meet-up venue on the 9th and 10th of March. However, Barcelona is full of nice cafés and co-working spaces if you want to join the workshops during your stay in Barcelona.
Will there be COVID-restrictions?
It is likely that some COVID-restrictions will still be in place. We will respect all measures and limitations that will be in force at the time.
No, the event is not sponsored by either of the two professional organisations. The main conference is, but the meet-up as an independent event is not.