Publications

The RARE Lab publishes in top HRI and robotics conferences (HRI, ICRA, IROS) and journals (THRI), as well as expanding to top AR/VR, cognitive science and linguistics conferences.

We have received the best long-paper award at INLG 2022, the best late-breaking report third prize at HRI 2022, and a best late-breaking report nominee at HRI 2023.

Refereed Journals

Zhao Han and Holly A. Yanco

Communicating Missing Causal Information to Explain a Robot’s Past Behavior

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/thri22b-communicating-missing-causal-information-to-explain-a-robots-past-behavior/

Landon Brown*, Jared Hamilton*, Zhao Han*†, Albert Phan*, Thao Phung*, Eric Hansen, Nhan Tran, and Tom Williams

Best of Both Worlds? Combining Different Forms of Mixed Reality Deictic Gestures

* Equal contribution

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/thri22-best-both-worlds-combining-different-forms-mixed-reality-deictic-gestures/

Zhao Han, Elizabeth Phillips (George Mason University), and Holly A. Yanco

The Need for Verbal Robot Explanations and How People Would Like a Robot To Explain Itself

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/thri21b-need-verbal-robot-explanations-how-people-would-like-robot-explain-itself/

Alexander Wilkinson, Michael Gonzales, Patrick Hoey, David Kontak, Dian Wang, Noah Torname, Sam Laderoute, Zhao Han, Jordan Allspaw, Robert Platt, and Holly A. Yanco

Design Guidelines for Human-Robot Interaction with Assistive Robot Manipulation Systems

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/paladyn21-design-guidelines-for-human-robot-interaction-with-assistive-robot-manipulation-systems/

Zhao Han, Daniel Giger, Jordan Allspaw, Michael S. Lee (CMU), Henny Admoni (CMU), and Holly A. Yanco

Building The Foundation of Robot Explanation Generation Using Behavior Trees

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/thri21a-building-the-foundation-of-robot-explanation-generation-using-behavior-trees/

Refereed Conference Proceedings

Adrian Lozada, Uthman Tijani, Villa Keth, Hong Wang and Zhao Han

Anywhere Projected AR for Robot Communication: A Mid-Air Fog Screen-Robot System

Top HRI conference. 25% acceptance rate.

Gregory LeMasurier, Alvika Gautam, Zhao Han, Jacob Crandall, and Holly Yanco

Reactive or Proactive? How Robots Should Explain Failures

Top HRI conference. 24.9% acceptance rate.

Annie Huang*, Alyson Ranucci*, Adam Stogsdill*, Grace Clark, Keenan Schott, Mark Higger, Zhao Han, and Tom Williams

(Gestures Vaguely): The Effects of Robots’ Use of Abstract Pointing Gestures in Large-Scale Environments

*Equal contribution. Top HRI conference. 24.9% acceptance rate.

Uthman Tijani, Hong Wang, and Zhao Han

Towards Reproducible Language-Based HRI Experiments: Open-Sourcing a Generalized Experiment Project

61.3% acceptance rate (short contribution)

Gabriel Del Castillo*, Grace Clark*, Zhao Han*, and Tom Williams

Exploring the Naturalness of Cognitive Status Informed Referring Form Selection Models

* Equal contribution

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/inlg23-exploring-the-naturalness-of-cognitive-status-informed-referring-form-selection-models/

Zhao Han and Tom Williams

Evaluating Cognitive Status-Informed Referring Form Selection for Human-Robot Interactions

43.4% acceptance rate (380/875)

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/cogsci23-evaluating-cognitive-status-informed-referring-form-selection-for-human-robot-interactions/

Zhao Han*, Yifei Zhu*, Albert Phan, Fernando Sandoval Garza, Amia Castro, Tom Williams

Crossing Reality: Comparing Physical and Virtual Robot Deixis

* Equal contribution; 25.2% acceptance rate

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri23ar-crossing-reality-comparing-physical-and-virtual-robot-deixis/

Ruchen Wen, Alyssa Hanson, Zhao Han, and Tom Williams

Fresh Start: Encouraging Politeness in Wakeword-Driven Human-Robot Interaction

25.2% acceptance rate

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri23wen-fresh-start-encouraging-politeness-in-wakeword-driven-human-robot-interaction/

Kevin Spevak*, Zhao Han*, Tom Williams, and Neil T. Dantam

Givenness Hierarchy Informed Optimal Document Planning for Situated Human-Robot Interaction

* Equal contribution; 48% acceptance rate (1,740/3,579)

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/iros22-givenness-hierarchy-informed-optimal-sentence-planning-situated-human-robot-interaction/

Zhao Han, Polina Rygina, and Tom Williams

Evaluating Referring Form Selection Models in Partially-Known Environments

Best Long-Paper Award

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/inlg22-evaluating-referring-form-selection-models-in-partially-known-environments/

Zhao Han, Jenna Parrillo, Alexander Wilkinson, Holly A. Yanco, and Tom Williams

Projecting Robot Navigation Paths: Hardware and Software for Projected AR

24% acceptance rate

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri22b-projecting-robot-navigation-paths-hardware-and-software-for-projected-ar/

Ruchen Wen, Zhao Han and Tom Williams

Teacher, Teammate, Subordinate, Friend: Generating Norm Violation Responses Grounded in Role-based Relational Norms

24% acceptance rate

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri22a-teacher-teammate-subordinate-friend-generating-norm-violation-responses-grounded-in-role-based-relational-norms/

Zhao Han, Adam Norton, Eric McCann, Lisa Baraniecki, Will Ober, Dave Shane, Anna Skinner and Holly A. Yanco

Investigation of Multiple Resource Theory Design Principles on Robot Teleoperation and Workload Management

49% acceptance rate (1,946/4,005)

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/icra21-investigation-of-multiple-resource-theory-design-principles-robot-teleoperation-workload-management/

Tyler Frasca* (Tufts), Zhao Han*, Jordan Allspaw, Holly Yanco, and Matthias Scheutz (Tufts)

Going Cognitive: A Demonstration of the Utility of Task-General Cognitive Architectures for Adaptive Robotic Task Performance

* Equal contribution; 47% acceptance rate (1,409/2,996)

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/iros20-going-cognitive-a-demonstration-of-the-utility-of-task-general-cognitive-architectures-for-adaptive-robotic-task-performance/

Zhao Han, Jordan Allspaw, Gregory LeMasurier, Jenna Parrillo, Daniel Giger, S. Reza Ahmadzadeh and Holly A. Yanco

Towards Mobile Multi-Task Manipulation in a Confined and Integrated Environment with Irregular Objects

42% acceptance rate (1,483/3,512)

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/icra20-towards-mobile-multi-task-manipulation-in-a-confined-and-integrated-environment-with-irregular-objects/

Zhao Han and Holly A. Yanco

The Effects of Proactive Release Behaviors During Human-Robot Handovers

28% acceptance rate

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri19-the-effects-of-proactive-release-behaviors-during-human-robot-handovers/

Patrick M. J. Dubois, Zhao Han, Fan Jiang and Carson K. Leung

An Interactive Circular Visual Analytic Tool for Visualization of Web Data

Zhao Han and Carson K. Leung

FIMaaS: Scalable Frequent Itemset Mining-as-a-Service on Cloud for Non-Expert Miners

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/bigdas15-fimaas-scalable-frequent-itemset-mining-as-a-service-cloud-non-expert-miners/

Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Zhao Han, Fan Jiang, Carson K. Leung and Hao Zhang

Edge-based mining of frequent subgraphs from graph streams

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/kes15-edge-based-mining-frequent-subgraphs-graph-streams/

Refereed Workshop Papers and Extended Abstracts

Xiangfei Kong and Zhao Han

Do Results in Experiments with Virtual Robots in Augmented Reality Transfer To Physical Robots? An Experiment Design

Hong Wang, Tam Do, and Zhao Han

To Understand Indicators of Robots’ Vision Capabilities

Hong Wang, Tam Do, and Zhao Han

Designing Indicators to Show a Robot’s Physical Vision Capability

Poster submission

Jiaee Cheong, Nikhil Churamani, Luke Guerdan, Tabitha Edith Lee, Zhao Han, and Hatice Gunes

Causal-HRI: Causal Learning for Human-Robot Interaction

Raj Korpan*, Amy Eguchi, Zhao Han, Anastasia K. Ostrowski, Sindhu Ravindranath, and Ana Tanevska

3rd Workshop on Inclusive HRI: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community

Rafael Sousa Silva, Zhao Han, and Tom Williams

The Importance of Memory for Language-Capable Robots

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/xrds23-the-importance-of-memory-for-language-capable-robots/

Mark Higger, Polina Rygina, Logan Daigler, Lara Ferreira Bezerra, Zhao Han, and Tom Williams

Toward Open-World Human-Robot Interaction: What Types of Gestures Are Used in Task-Based Open-World Referential Communication?

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/semdial23-toward-open-world-human-robot-interaction-what-types-of-gestures-are-used-in-task-based-open-world-referential-communication/

Shelly Bagchi*, Patrick Holthaus, Gloria Beraldo, Emmanuel Senft, Daniel Hernández García, Zhao Han, Suresh Kumaar Jayaraman, Alessandra Rossi, Connor Esterwood, Antonio Andriella, and Paul Pridham

Towards Improved Replicability of Human Studies in Human-Robot Interaction: Recommendations for Formalized Reporting

Best LBR Nominee

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri23lbr-towards-improved-replicability-of-human-studies-in-human-robot-interaction-recommendations-for-formalized-reporting/

Zhao Han, Tom Williams, and Holly A. Yanco

Mixed-Reality Robot Behavior Replay: A System Implementation

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/aihri22-mixed-reality-robot-behavior-replay-a-system-implementation/

Zhao Han and Tom Williams

Towards Formalizing HRI Data Collection Processes

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri22tmm-towards-formalizing-hri-data-collection-processes/

Zhao Han*, Albert Phan*, Amia Castro*, Fernando Sandoval Garza* and Tom Williams

Towards an Understanding of Physical vs Virtual Robot Appendage Design

*equal contribution

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/vamhri22-towards-an-understanding-of-physical-vs-virtual-robot-appendage-design/

Gregory LeMasurier, Alvika Gautam, Zhao Han, Jacob W. Crandall, and Holly A. Yanco

“Why Didn’t I Do It?” A Study Design to Evaluate Robot Explanations

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/wysd22-why-didnt-i-do-it-a-study-design-to-evaluate-robot-explanations/

Zhao Han, Boyoung Kim, Holly A. Yanco, and Tom Williams

Causal Robot Communication Inspired by Observational Learning Insights

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/aaai-sss22-causal-robot-communication-inspired-by-observational-learning-insights/

Zhao Han and Tom Williams

A Task Design for Studying Referring Behaviors for Linguistic HRI

Best LBR Award, Third Prize

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/hri22lbr-a-task-design-for-studying-referring-behaviors-for-linguistic-hri/

Zhao Han, Alexander Wilkinson, Jenna Parrillo, Jordan Allspaw, and Holly A. Yanco

Projection Mapping Implementation: Enabling Direct Externalization of Perception Results and Action Intent to Improve Robot Explainability

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/aihri20-projection-mapping-implementation-enabling-direct-externalization-of-perception-results-and-action-intent-to-improve-robot-explainability/

Zhao Han and Holly A. Yanco

Reasons People Want Explanations After Unrecoverable Pre-Handover Failures

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/icra20ws-reasons-people-want-explanations-after-unrecoverable-pre-handover-failures/

Zhao Han, Jordan Allspaw, Adam Norton and Holly Yanco

Towards A Robot Explanation System: A Survey and Our Approach to State Summarization, Storage and Querying, and Human Interface

Full paper, 8 pages

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/aihri19-towards-a-robot-explanation-system-a-survey-and-our-approach-to-state-summarization-storage-and-querying-and-human-interface/

Theses

Zhao Han

Robot Explanations: Preferences, Generation, and Communication

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/phd-dissertation-robot-explanations-preferences-generation-communication/

Zhao Han

Delivering Scalable Frequent Pattern Mining for Non-Expert Data Miners

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/ms-thesis-delivering-scalable-frequent-pattern-mining-for-non-expert-data-miners/

Other Publications

Jivko Sinapov, Zhao Han, Shelly Bagchi, Muneeb Ahmad, Matteo Leonetti, Ross Mead, Reuth Mirsky, and Emmanuel Senft

Introduction to the Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction (AI-HRI)

Ana Tanevska, Shruti Chandra, Giulia Barbareschi, Amy Eguchi, Zhao Han, Raj Korpan, Anastasia K. Ostrowski, Giulia Perugia, Sindhu Ravindranath, Katie Seaborn, Katie Winkle

Inclusive HRI II: Equity and Diversity in Design, Application, Methods, and Community

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/inclusive-hri-ii/

Zhao Han, Emmanuel Senft, Muneeb I. Ahmad, Shelly Bagchi, Amir Yazdani, Jason R. Wilson, Boyoung Kim, Ruchen Wen, Justin W. Hart, Daniel Hernández García, Matteo Leonetti, Ross Mead, Reuth Mirsky, Ahalya Prabhakar, and Megan L. Zimmerman

Proceedings of the AI-HRI Symposium at AAAI-FSS 2022

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/ai-hri-2022-proceedings/

Reuth Mirsky, Megan Zimmerman, Muneed Ahmad, Shelly Bagchi, Felix Gervits, Zhao Han, Justin Hart, Daniel Hernández García, Matteo Leonetti, Ross Mead, Emmanuel Senft, Jivko Sinapov, Jason Wilson

AI-HRI 2021 Proceedings

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/ai-hri-2021-proceedings/

Shelly Bagchi, Jason R. Wilson, Muneeb I. Ahmad, Christian Dondrup, Zhao Han, Justin W. Hart, Matteo Leonetti, Katrin Lohan, Ross Mead, Emmanuel Senft, Jivko Sinapov and Megan L. Zimmerman

Proceedings of the AI-HRI Symposium at AAAI-FSS 2020

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/ai-hri-2020-proceedings/

Zhao Han

Investigating Human-Robot Handover Release Behaviors

Poster

https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/nems18-investigating-human-robot-handover-release-behaviors/