2 PhD Positions in Human-Robot-Bonding

These vacancies for two PhD-candidate positions are part of a EU-funded ‘ERC Advanced Grant’, titled “Understanding Human-Robot Bonding to Optimize Personal Support” [ROBOT-BOND], awarded to prof. dr. Elly A. Konijn (PI) with a total duration of 5 years. See: https://vu.nl/en/news/2024/erc-advanced-grant-for-professor-of-media-psychology-elly-konijn

The overarching aim of the ERC-project ROBOT-BOND is to develop and empirically validate a new theory on Human-Robot-Bonding for longer term interactions focusing on various target groups. The different target groups include children, adolescents, students, and adults. Social robots are being developed to assist professionals in areas in healthcare and education, where they face serious shortages in human personnel. Our project focuses specifically on developing scenarios to provide support for those who need a little extra in the social and communicative realm. Establishing some form of a bond between the human user and a robot is seen as essential to effectively use a social robot over longer time. The research team will compare different types of robots in varying contexts, with different tasks and different target groups. Within this research program, we integrate research from the perspectives of Communication Science and Media Psychology, with Developmental and Clinical Psychology, Computer Sciences/AI, Human-Robot-Interaction, and Natural Language Processing in focus groups, experiments, and field studies. The two PhD-candidates will closely collaborate with three Postdoctoral researchers that are currently hired in the same project, among others.

Your duties
Collaborate in an interdisciplinary team (media psychology, developmental and clinical psychology, computational linguistics, AI) to further develop and empirically validate a theory on affective bonding with social robots through focus groups and lab (PhD1) or field studies (PhD2). Jointly, in the first six months, the team will align the various sub-projects and literature reviews will bring knowledge from the diverse fields together. Together, ethical guidelines, active consent and properly informed participant information materials will be prepared, also acknowledging Open Science principles. First studies in each sub-project explore best fitting robot options, communication cues, needs, and goals to be aligned between robots and targeted users. To assess the theoretical constructs in the model, new short-form measurement devices need to be developed and optimized through pre-testing and validation in representative samples. Further testing occurs with various robots differing in appearances and competencies within specific social contexts, related to answer the overarching research question. Together with your supervisors and team members, you will plan and execute your own research project, collaborate in others, carry out your research according to international standards and Open Science principles, make your research and experiments publicly available and reproducible, and publish it in leading international journals, conference proceedings, and brief reports accessible to the public at large. The research work of the PhD-candidates should result in a timely completion of a dissertation each. As a PhD-candidate, you will take part in the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS) that offers a wide range of courses for your further academic development (see website, ‘Starting your PhD trajectory’). More detailed information is available upon request.

PhD-1 (0.8 fte, 5 yr) will have a specific focus on testing the underlying assumptions in human-robot bonding in lab-experiments with university students. This also includes psycho-physiological measures;

PhD-2 (0.8 fte, 5 yr) will have a specific focus on primary education with a robot as tutor for arithmetic (i.e., mastering of times tables) in field studies. This includes close collaboration with primary schools.

Requirements:

• Completed (Research) Master degree in Communication Science (Media Psychology), Psychology (Developmental, Clinical or Clinical Psychology), Educational Sciences, Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence), Computational Linguistics, or closely related fields.
• Strong interest in advancing the social-psychological aspects of robots to serve in society, specifically in healthcare and education.
• Related, strong interest in psychological and mediated processes in interacting with social robots.
• Knowledge of and ample experience with empirical (field and/or experimental) studies and research designs.
• Advanced statistical and analytical skills; experience with R or Python is recommended.
• Interest, and preferably experience with, multi-method approaches combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies (e.g., focus groups and experiments).
• Excellent academic writing skills.
• Knowledge of and experience with using and analyzing psycho-physiological measures (e.g., EEG, hormonal measures; PhD-1).
• Interest in and affinity with programming and social technologies.
• Affinity with collaborating with societal partners and public outreach (PhD-2).
• Good cross-disciplinary team collaboration and oral and written communication skills.
• Interest in working in an interdisciplinary project in collaboration with various experts in communication science, psychology, computer sciences, among others, and a good sense for following ethical guidelines for research.
• Mastery of both Dutch and English language skills.

Salary Benefits:

A challenging position in a socially involved and highly interdisciplinary organization allowing for a solid academic development. The salary will be in accordance with university regulations for academic personnel and amounts from €2,872 per month (during the first year) and increases to €3,670 gross per month during the final year, based on a full-time employment. The job profile is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for 0.8 FTE.

The appointment will initially be for 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, based on a portfolio including academic products as defined by the GSSS, the PhD-contract will be extended for a total duration of 5 years (based on a 0.8 fte contract). Additionally, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as: 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus; contribution to commuting expenses; optional model for designing a personalized benefits package; a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge.

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