Autonomous drones are expected to become prevalent in populated environments such as warehouses, factories, and homes, where individuals and drones will coexist while independently performing tasks. However, the dynamics of this shared autonomy, particularly the spatial behaviors (proxemics) that arise in these settings, remain underexplored in the Human–Drone Interaction (HDI) field. Understanding how task-driven behaviors influence navigation around drones is critical for ensuring their seamless integration into such environments. This study investigates how individuals’ prioritization of task completion interacts with proxemic behaviors, potentially overriding defensive mechanisms like maintaining safety distances. We conducted a study with 26 participants in a fully immersive virtual environment where both participants and a drone were tasked with moving objects. Using a 2 × 2 within-subject design, we examined proxemics in relaxed and competitive scenarios, with the drone carrying either normal or explosive boxes (triggering explosions on contact). Results revealed a significant interaction between scenario type and the drone’s danger level: in relaxed scenarios, participants deviated more from the shortest path when the drone carried explosive boxes. However, stronger task-oriented behavior correlated with closer approaches to the drone, regardless of danger. These findings highlight the dominance of goal-oriented behavior in shaping Human–Drone Proxemics and its implications for drone deployment in high-performance environments.

Child users of Social VR (SVR) face challenges dealing with group harassment. While mitigation tools exist, it is unclear a) how suitable they are for children experiencing group harassment, b) the extent to which children want control over interventions. We conducted two user studies involving 74 children (N1=40, N2=34) in which we compared strategies for dealing with group harassment. First, we compared three ways of manually blocking harassers (SelectBlock, MassBlock, PointBlock) and two intervention positions (ground level vs elevated). Second, we contrasted manual blocking with different levels of automation provided by an Automated Moderator (AM). We investigated how the initiation and decision of blocking, whether by the child or by an AM, impact children’s perceptions. Results show children value engaging interventions, PointBlock, and elevation. They seek control but appreciate assistance when involved in AM decision-making. We provide design considerations for creating safe, empowering experiences for children facing SVR group harassment.

The integration of humanoid and animal-shaped robots into specialized domains, such as healthcare, multiterrain operations, and psychotherapy, necessitates a deep understanding of proxemics-the study of spatial behavior that governs effective human-robot interactions. Unlike traditional robots in manufacturing or logistics, these robots must navigate complex human environments where maintaining appropriate physical and psychological distances is crucial for seamless interaction. This study explores the application of proxemics in human-robot interactions, focusing specifically on quadruped robots, which present unique challenges and opportunities due to their lifelike movement and form. Utilizing a motion capture system, we examine how different interaction postures of a canine robot influence human participants' proxemic behavior in dynamic scenarios. By capturing and analyzing position and orientation data, this research aims to identify key factors that affect proxemic distances and inform the design of socially acceptable robots. The findings underscore the importance of adhering to human psychological and physical distancing norms in robot design, ensuring that autonomous systems can coexist harmoniously with humans.

The potential for drones to engage with people and find applications in social contexts is often constrained by their mechanical design, leading to concerns and negative associations that significantly affect people’s acceptance of drones in their personal space. In this study, we explore how social cues can impact the spatial dynamic of Human–Drone Interaction. Within a fully immersive virtual environment, 25 participants engaged with and navigated around a drone that communicated several facial emotions on a digital display such as Joy, Sadness and Anger, and enacted distinct “gaze” behaviors (i.e., following participants or averting its gaze). Our results indicate that participants responded to the drone’s gaze in a manner akin to what is reported during human interaction: maintaining a greater distance when the drone established eye contact and instinctively getting closer when it averted its gaze. A more granular analysis revealed that participants who lacked prior familiarity with drones or possessed neutral to positive attitudes toward them demonstrated a higher sensitivity to the drone’s digital facial emotions. This finding highlights the potential for leveraging social cues to facilitate the integration of drones into various human-centric environments and tailor their design and behavior to suit specific individuals and situations.

Automated embodied moderation has the potential to create safer spaces for children in social VR, providing a protective figure that takes action to mitigate harmful interactions. However, little is known about how such moderation should be employed in practice. Through interviews with 16 experts in online child safety and psychology, and workshops with 8 guardians and 13 children, we contribute a comprehensive overview of how Automated Embodied Moderators (AEMs) can safeguard children in social VR. We explore perceived concerns, benefits and preferences across the stakeholder groups and gather first-of-their-kind recommendations and reflections around AEM design. The results stress the need to adapt AEMs to children, whether victims or harassers, based on age and development, emphasising empowerment, psychological impact and humans/guardians-in-the-loop. Our work provokes new participatory design-led directions to consider in the development of AEMs for children in social VR taking child, guardian, and expert insights into account.

Zoomorphic robots have the potential to offer companionship and well-being as accessible, low-maintenance alternatives to pet ownership. Many such robots, however, feature limited emotional expression, restricting their potential for rich affective relationships with everyday domestic users. Additionally, exploring this design space using hardware prototyping is obstructed by physical and logistical constraints. We leveraged virtual reality rapid prototyping with passive haptic interaction to conduct a broad mixed-methods evaluation of emotion expression modalities and participatory prototyping of multimodal expressions. We found differences in recognisability, effectiveness and user empathy between modalities while highlighting the importance of facial expressions and the benefits of combining animal-like and unambiguous modalities. We use our findings to inform promising directions for the affective zoomorphic robot design and potential implementations via hardware modification or augmented reality, then discuss how VR prototyping makes this field more accessible to designers and researchers.

Children experience new forms of harassment in Social Virtual Reality (VR), often inaccessible to parental oversight. We aimed to understand how an artificial intelligent moderator safeguarding children from harassment in social VR is perceived by children and parents, by introducing “Big Buddy”, a Wizard-of-Oz embodied AI-moderator. 43 children (aged 8-16) played a tower-block-construction game in a simulated Social VR classroom where fictitious competitors disrupted their game and, in experimental conditions where present, Big Buddy intervened. We measured children’s perceptions after the disruptions, towards Big Buddy, and the moderation actions it took. Children felt significantly less sad and safer when Big Buddy suspended the saboteur. Parents (n=17) noted Big Buddy’s usefulness and felt reassured but would remain in the supervision loop. We present the first empirical research of a VR-embodied AI-moderator with children’s and parents’ perspectives, and propose design directions for embodied AI-moderators in Social VR.