GROUND25: advancing GROup UNderstanding and robots' aDaptive behavior IAS 19 (Intelligent Autonomous Systems) Genoa, Italy, June 30, 2025

The proposed workshop aims to provide a cutting-edge perspective in the field of group-robot interactions, to promote the development of robots that are aware of group dynamics and can adapt their behavior to complex multiparty interactions, and to discuss how to bring this field in alignment with the existing guidelines on ethical and transparent human-robot interaction.As collaborative and assistive robots are increasingly integrated in settings like workplaces, schools, and care facilities, it is crucial to ensure their behavior aligns with the complex dynamics of multiparty contexts (Belpaeme et al., 2018; Schneiders et al., 2022; Sebo et al., 2020). Robots have already been shown to be effective tools for studying group interactions socially and physically, offering insights into modeling, enhancing, and predicting human group dynamics (e.g., Leite et al., 2012; Alves-Oliveira et al., 2019; Strohkorb Sebo et al., 2018). However, studying group dynamics in HRI entails challenges from both a technical (e.g., tracking multiple users simultaneously) and a theoretical point of view (e.g., modeling agents with reciprocal influence during decision-making tasks).Additionally, keeping up with the recent proposed guidelines and legislations on trustworthy and ethical human-agent and human-robot interaction (such as the ALTAI guidelines on Trustworthy AI and the EU AI Act), the ethical dimension of this research needs also to be reflected in its design, by spotlighting the transparency of the robot, exploring the user agency and sense of autonomy, as well as ensuring the diversity of the studies.Participants are invited to share innovative strategies for exploring group-robot interactions, providing a fresh and insightful viewpoint on: (1) using robots for understanding group dynamics; (2) designing robots able to interact with groups; (3) exploring the specific ethical challenges when working on group-robot interaction. In addition, the discussion will involve the ethical implications of researching group dynamics, including potential negative outcomes such as biases towards group members

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Understanding group dynamics using robots.
• Promoting natural communication, mutual understanding and trust in human-robot mixed groups.
• Adaptation and personalization to groups.
• Learning strategies for autonomous behaviors of robots in groups.
• Designing robots able to interact with groups.
• Modelling, understanding and predicting group behaviors.
• Exploring different robot’s roles (e.g., peer, teacher, helper or friend) in group interactions.
• Gamification in multiparty human-robot interactions.
• Interdisciplinary collaborations between roboticists, game designers, psychologists, and sociologists.
• Novel experimental designs for conducting group-robot interaction research.
• Ethical considerations in researching group dynamics and potential biases or negative consequences.

For any inquiry, please contact us at workshop.ground@gmail.com.