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Towards a Cognitive Model for Inferring Dynamic Fairness Perception to Support Fairer Human-Robot Collaboration

Muneeb Ahmad Orcid Logo, Yosuke Fukuchi Orcid Logo

HRI Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Pages: 272 - 276

Swansea University Author: Muneeb Ahmad Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1145/3776734.3794398

Abstract

Current research on measuring human perceptions of fairness in Human-Robot Teams (HRTs) has primarily focused on subjective metrics, such as rating statements either during or at the conclusion of interactions. This suggests a gap in examining the dynamic and evolving nature of fairness perceptions...

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Published in: HRI Companion '26: Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
ISBN: 9798400723216
Published: New York, NY, USA Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2026
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71477
Abstract: Current research on measuring human perceptions of fairness in Human-Robot Teams (HRTs) has primarily focused on subjective metrics, such as rating statements either during or at the conclusion of interactions. This suggests a gap in examining the dynamic and evolving nature of fairness perceptions objectively during human-robot collaboration. In this paper, we introduce a novel cognitive model that enables individuals to perceive fairness dynamically throughout an HRT experiment. This model is inspired by the Bayesian Theory of Mind, allowing us to infer perceptions of fairness in real-time. The core idea of the model is that fairness perception stems from a person's ongoing inference about the bias in a robot's value function. We establish an equation that translates this inference into a perceived fairness value, which is based not only on the inferred bias but also on the confidence of that inference. A qualitative comparison of the model's performance with a previous human-robot collaboration study suggests that it can effectively capture key trends in human fairness perception dynamically. These findings highlight the model's potential applicability, and it may be utilized in resource distribution algorithms in HRTs to promote fairer collaboration.
Item Description: Short Paper
Keywords: Human-Robot Interaction, Fairness, Task or Resource Allocation, Bayesian Theory of Mind, Second-order Theory of Mind
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Funders: This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP24K20846.
Start Page: 272
End Page: 276