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Robots are becoming part of our everyday lives, from health care to home assistance. But for humans to truly trust and collaborate with them, robots need more than technical skill—they need to understand us.
That's the challenge at the heart of new work being undertaken by Dr. Mehdi Hellou as part of PRIMI, a project exploring how robots can develop a "theory of mind"—the ability to infer what people believe, prefer or intend. The aim is to develop autonomous technologies that might anticipate when someone needs help, adapt their behaviors over time, or respond to situations in a more socially intelligent way.
To achieve this, researchers are drawing on insights from psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence to create robots that combine motor intelligence (how they move), with cognitive intelligence (how they reason).
As project lead Dr. Hellou explains, "It's important to develop autonomous systems that can assist humans in their daily life, but also in critical scenarios such as health care or nuclear waste decommissioning. This requires machines capable of adapting their behaviors to different users and environments."
The group's latest paper is published in the journal ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction.
The project's vision will be tested in clinical pilot studies on stroke rehabilitation, where humanoid robots could support patients' recovery.
If successful, PRIMI could help to usher in a new generation of socially aware robots that are not only more capable of learning in real time, but also more relatable and trustworthy.
More information: Georgios Angelopoulos et al, Robot, Did You Read My Mind? Modelling Human Mental States to Facilitate Transparency and Mitigate False Beliefs in Human–Robot Collaboration, ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (2025). DOI: 10.1145/3737890
Provided by University of Manchester
