With her research programme ROBOT-BOND, Elly Konijn integrates research from the AI and technical side with the perspective from communication science and media psychology. Central to this is the question of how, why and under what circumstances people can build a bond with a robot they know is not a real human being.
Such a bond is seen as essential if a social robot is to be used effectively for people to improve their circumstances or assist with certain tasks over longer periods of time. To cope with manpower shortages in areas such as healthcare and education, social robots are being developed to provide support.
Konijn compares different types of robots with different target groups including children, adolescents, students and other adults.
Konijn: "I am super happy with the award of this research grant and I see it as an important step forward in the research of much-needed communication robots for future support in different domains of society."
Media psychology research
Elly Konijn plays a prominent role in the establishment of the Media Psychology Program Amsterdam at the Department of Communication Studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This programme focuses, among other things, on the social benefits of human-like communication robots from the perspective of mediated communication and media psychology. Her research is at the intersection of three main themes: emotions and perceptions of reality in fiction and media, media use among adolescents, and virtual characters and social robots.
Konijn's work has important applications in human health and well-being, media-based education and the creative industries. Her approach is multidisciplinary and multi-methodological, applying both qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Konijn has extensive experience in developing innovative research tools and measurement instruments.
The grant awarded is larger than usual because of the planned purchase of 40 robots: a massive 3.2 million.
Bio
Elly Konijn has a theoretical and methodological background in various fields, including theatre, film and television studies, psychology, communication science and human-computer interaction. She bridges disciplines and integrates theories to enhance our understanding of communication in mediated environments. Her success can be seen in numerous successful grant applications with multidisciplinary teams, extensive national and internationational collaborations and numerous media appearances.
Earlier this year, Elly Konijn was named FSS's best senior researcher and received the faculty research award.
A notable part of her work is the award-winning documentary "Alice Cares" (2015), which highlights her research on social robots with elderly people. This documentary was praised at national and international film festivals and aired on national television.
