Project Description
Prof. Dr. Verena Hafner
Principal Investigator
Short Vita
I am Professor of Adaptive Systems at the Department of Computer Science at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I am member of the Executive Board of the Cluster of Excellence “Science of Intelligence” and Programme member of the DFG Priority Programme “Active Self” (SPP 2134).
What I find exciting about this research initiative
Social cohesion is a complex concept that is influenced by many different factors. One of these factors are social interactions between individuals and groups of individuals. I am interested in how these interactions take place in real and virtual spaces and shape social cohesion. Our research initiative investigates interaction dynamics and social cohesion from a very multidisciplinary perspective.
What my discipline can contribute to this research initiative
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence can create computational models and simulations of interactions and thus create a better understanding of the interaction dynamics in humans leading to social cohesion. My own research investigates how artificial agents can create predictive models of themselves and their interaction partners leading to intuitive human-robot interaction.
Five key publications
Ciria, A., Schillaci, G., Pezzulo, G., Hafner, V.V. & Lara, B. (2021). Predictive Processing in Cognitive Robotics: a Review. Neural Computation (2021) 33 (5): 1402–1432. doi 10.1162/neco_a_01383
Hafner, V.V., Loviken, P., Pico Villalpando, A., Schillaci, G. (2020). Prerequisites for an Artificial Self. Frontiers in Neurorobotics. Vol. 14, p.5. doi 10.3389/fnbot.2020.00005. ISSN 1662-5218
Acevedo Valle, J.M., Hafner, V.V., and Angulo, C. (2018). Social Reinforcement in Artificial Prelinguistic Development: A Study Using Intrinsically Motivated Exploration Architectures, IEEE Trans. on Cognitive and Developmental Systems. doi 10.1109/TCDS.2018.2883249
Schillaci, G., Hafner, V.V., Lara, B. (2016). Exploration behaviours, body representations and simulation processes for the development of cognition in artificial agents, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, section Humanoid Robotics, 3:39. doi 10.3389/frobt.2016.00039
Schillaci G., Bodiroza S. and Hafner V.V. (2013). Evaluating the Effect of Saliency Detection and Attention Manipulation in Human-Robot Interaction, International Journal of Social Robotics. Springer, 5:1. pp. 139-152. doi 10.1007/s12369-012-0174-7