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Papers shared on this page are pre-prints or peer-reviewed Open Access publications. Feel free to email me if you are having trouble accessing a paper.

Journal Papers

[In review.] Laban, G., Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., Abbasi, N.I., Gunes, H. (2025). Critical Insights about Robots for Mental Wellbeing. (17 pages). [arXiv]

Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., Jeong, S., Tuttosi, P., Stamatis, C., Laban, G., Lim. A & Gunes, H. (2025). Past, Present, and Future: A Survey of The Evolution of Affective Robotics For Well-being. (16 pages.) IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. [Pre-print PDF] [arXiv] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Churamani, N., Caldir, A., & Gunes, H. (2025). Participant Perceptions of a Robotic Coach Conducting Positive Psychology Exercises: A Qualitative Analysis. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 14 (2), 1-27. [arXiv] [Publisher]

Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., & Gunes, H. (2025). VITA: A Multi-Modal LLM-based System for Longitudinal, Autonomous, and Adaptive Robotic Mental Well-being Coaching. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 14.2 (2025): 1-28. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2024). Robots as Mental Well-being Coaches: Design and Ethical Recommendations. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 13(2), 1-55. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Oliveira, R., Racca, M., & Kyrki, V. (2021). Social Robot Co-Design Canvases: A Participatory Design Framework. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 11(1), 1-39. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher] [Canvases]

Oliveira, R., Arriaga, P., Axelsson, M., & Paiva, A. (2021). Humor–Robot Interaction: A Scoping Review of the Literature and Future Directions. International Journal of Social Robotics, 13, 1369-1383. [Publisher]

Conference Proceedings

Axelsson, M., & Shevlin, H. (2026, March). Disambiguating Anthropomorphism and Anthropomimesis in Human-Robot Interaction. In Companion Proceedings of the 21st ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 855-859). [arXiv] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., & Sikau, L. L. (2025, November). Choreographing Trash Cans: On Speculative Futures of Weak Robots in Public Spaces. In Proceedings of the 38th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (pp. 309-313). [arXiv] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M. (2025, November). Speculative Design of Equitable Robotics: Queer Fictions and Futures. In Proceedings of the 38th International BCS Human-Computer Interaction Conference (pp. 304-308). [arXiv] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Cheong, J., Nyrup, R., Gunes, H. (2025). Who Owns The Robot?: Four Ethical and Socio-technical Questions about Wellbeing Robots in the Real World through Community Engagement. In Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 249-264). [arXiv] [Publisher]

Spitale, M., Parreira, M., Stiber, M., Axelsson, M., Kara, N., Kankariya, G., Huang, C., Jung, M., Ju, W., & Gunes, H. (2024). ERR@HRI 2024 Challenge: Multimodal Detection of Errors and Failures in Human-Robot Interactions. In Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction. ACM, 2024. (pp. 652-656) [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

M. Spitale, M. Axelsson & H. Gunes, Appropriateness of LLM-equipped Robotic Well-being Coach Language in the Workplace: A Qualitative Evaluation. (2024). In 2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN), pp. 1571-1578. [Pre-print PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2024). “Oh Sorry, I Think I Interrupted You”: Designing Repair Strategies for Robotic Longitudinal Well-being Coaching. In 2024 19th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). IEEE. pp. 13-22. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., Kara, N., & Gunes, H. (2023). Longitudinal Evolution of Coachees’ Behavioural Responses to Interaction Ruptures in Robotic Positive Psychology Coaching. In 2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). IEEE. pp. 315-322. [Pre-print PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2023). Robotic Coaches Delivering Group Mindfulness Practice at a Public Cafe. In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. pp. 86-90. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Spitale, M., & Gunes, H. (2023). Adaptive Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches. In Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. pp. 733-735. [Publisher]

Spitale, M., Axelsson, M., & Gunes, H. (2023). Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches for the Workplace: An In-the-Wild Study on Form. In 2023 18th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). IEEE. pp. 301-310. [Open Access PDF] [Publisher]

Churamani, N.*, Axelsson, M.*, Caldir, A., & Gunes, H. (2022). Continual Learning for Affective Robotics: A Proof of Concept for Wellbeing. In 2022 10th International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACII-W). IEEE. pp. 1-8. [Pre-print PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Bodala, I. P., & Gunes, H. (2021). Participatory Design of a Robotic Mental Well-being Coach. In 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). IEEE. pp. 1081-1088. [Pre-print PDF] [Publisher]

Axelsson, M., Racca, M., Weir, D., & Kyrki, V. (2019). A Participatory Design Process of a Robotic Tutor of Assistive Sign Language for Children with Autism. In 2019 28th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN). IEEE. pp. 1-8. [Pre-print PDF] [Publisher]

Kaipio, J., Stenhammar, H., Immonen, S., Litovuo, L., Axelsson, M., Lantto, M., & Lahdenne, P. (2018). Improving Hospital Services Based on Patient Experience Data: Current Feedback Practices and Future Opportunities. Studies in health technology and informatics, 247, 266-270. [Publisher]

Licenses

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