This paper emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in exploring the concept of robot gender within Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). It draws on a case study of the authors' own collaboration, where interdisciplinary discussions on the nature of gender informed the design of a multimethod study. This approach allowed us to avoid assigning a binary gender to Pepper robot, while still encouraging participants to reflect on their own gendering practices during interactions with robots. Additionally, we invite readers to consider alternative ways of conceptualizing robot gender in HRI—specifically, as fluid and performative rather than binary, which relies on stereotypical cues. After describing how our discussions on gender influenced and reshaped the study design, we offer practical advice on fostering interdisciplinary collaborations. These suggestions focus on communication strategies, mindset, and the practical setup of collaborative studies. We hope that these recommendations will inspire other researchers to continue exploring new and interdisciplinary ways of approaching robot gender in HRI.

During the past decade, there has been an increased interest in using social companionship robots for older adults in care homes. Previous studies have shown that these robots, often in the shape of a household pet, can decrease stress and loneliness while increasing communication and quality of life. In our research, studying the effects of cat and dog robots at care homes, we got the impression that these robots are quite common and that the reason for implementing them varies. Therefore, we conducted an online survey, asking all municipalities in Sweden if they have social companionship robots, how they are using them and for what kind of care organisation. The result showed that more than half of the municipalities use pet robots for older adults, and most commonly for people with dementia to lower stress and increase the feeling of safety.

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is inherently a human-centric field of technology. The role of feminist theories in related fields (e.g. Human-Computer Interaction, Data Science) are taken as a starting point to present a vision for Feminist HRI which can support better, more ethical HRI practice everyday, as well as a more activist research and design stance. We first define feminist design for an HRI audience and use a set of feminist principles from neighboring fields to examine existent HRI literature, showing the progress that has been made already alongside some additional potential ways forward. Following this we identify a set of reflexive questions to be posed throughout the HRI design, research and development pipeline, encouraging a sensitivity to power and to individuals' goals and values. Importantly, we do not look to present a definitive, fixed notion of Feminist HRI, but rather demonstrate the ways in which bringing feminist principles to our field can lead to better, more ethical HRI, and to discuss how we, the HRI community, might do this in practice.

With more robots entering social environments, such as care homes for older adults, it is increasingly important to understand the target user groups’ perception of different robot platforms that are introduced into their immediate surroundings. To add to existing research on older adults’ attitudes toward robots after meeting a robot, and social acceptance toward certain robots, we conducted a short-term interaction study with the Furhat robot. Furhat, a blended embodiment of a physical robot head with a virtual (back-projected) face, is being marketed as one of the most social robots with high human-likeness. However, this study’s results indicates that older adults do not perceive Furhat as anthropomorphic or sentient, and they especially reported a negative attitude toward robots with emotions after meeting Furhat. Despite these scores, all participants were engaged in the interaction with the robot. However, our results differ from previous studies by indicating that older adults have relatively low social acceptance for Furhat and a relatively negative attitude toward robots after meeting Furhat.