About this Research Topic
Our everyday interactions are built upon the ability to accurately anticipate the thoughts, emotions, and actions of each other. Psychologists commonly refer to this ability as theory of mind (ToM). Our ToM allows us to accomplish a diversity of social interactions, such as delicately predicting how our behavior will impact the feelings of a loved one or deftly maneuvering through rush hour traffic. If one is to believe the academic literature, endowing robots and other intelligent systems with abilities akin to human ToM is essential to their success—particularly when interacting with humans. Although researchers have made considerable progress in this area, there is still extensive research needed to realize robust ToM for robots and other intelligent systems.
The aim of this Research Topic is to collect state-of-the-art research related to ToM (and related cognitive abilities) for robots and intelligent systems. Endowing robots and intelligent systems with robust ToM will empower them to work more effectively with human teammates and better respond to the actions of humans in their environment. The goal of this Research Topic is two-fold: 1) improve the state-of-the-art ToM models adapted from cognitive science for robots and 2) advance new models of social cognition developed for the unique challenges of robots and intelligent systems. Both sub-goals are rich with research challenges.
The Research Topic seeks contributions of Original Research, Systematic Review, Data Report, Methods, and Review. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Alternative social cognition models
• Artificial social intelligence
• Bayesian theory of mind
• Cognitive architectures
• Computational models of cognition
• Decision theoretic models of social reasoning
• Deep learning theory of mind models
• Dynamic epistemic logic
• Human robot interaction
• Large language models for theory of mind
• Robotics team situational awareness
The aim of this Research Topic is to collect state-of-the-art research related to ToM (and related cognitive abilities) for robots and intelligent systems. Endowing robots and intelligent systems with robust ToM will empower them to work more effectively with human teammates and better respond to the actions of humans in their environment. The goal of this Research Topic is two-fold: 1) improve the state-of-the-art ToM models adapted from cognitive science for robots and 2) advance new models of social cognition developed for the unique challenges of robots and intelligent systems. Both sub-goals are rich with research challenges.
The Research Topic seeks contributions of Original Research, Systematic Review, Data Report, Methods, and Review. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Alternative social cognition models
• Artificial social intelligence
• Bayesian theory of mind
• Cognitive architectures
• Computational models of cognition
• Decision theoretic models of social reasoning
• Deep learning theory of mind models
• Dynamic epistemic logic
• Human robot interaction
• Large language models for theory of mind
• Robotics team situational awareness
Keywords: Theory of Mind, Intelligent Systems, cognitive robotics, computational models, artificial social intelligence
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
