Reproducibility in Human-Robot Interaction: Furthering the Science of HRI

To discuss the current state of reproducibility of research in human-robot interaction (HRI), challenges specific to the field, and recommendations for how the community can support reproducibility.

As in related fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and psychology, improving research reproducibility is key to the maturation of the body of scientific knowledge in the field of HRI. The ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction introduced a theme on Reproducibility of HRI to their technical program in 2020 to solicit papers presenting reproductions of prior research or artifacts supporting research reproducibility.

This review provides an introduction to the topic of research reproducibility for HRI and describes the state of the art in relation to the HRI 2020 Reproducibility theme. As a highly interdisciplinary field that involves work with technological artifacts, there are unique challenges to reproducibility in HRI. Biases in research evaluation and practice contribute to challenges in supporting reproducibility, and the training of researchers could be changed to encourage research reproduction. The authors propose a number of solutions for addressing these challenges that can serve as guidelines for the HRI community and related fields.