Project CULSHY

Cross-cultural studies on shyness: Experimental studies on gesture production of school-aged children and their nonverbal communicative behavior in a child-robot interaction (CULSHY)

In this DAAD-funded project, we aim to develop a sustainable collaborative relationship for research and education between Waseda University and Paderborn University by: (1) scientific exchange, (2) collaborative teaching, (3) student exchange, and (4) material collection.  

• The first goal (1) is to deepen the scientific exchange between Waseda and Paderborn University by addressing questions about how shyness affects school-aged children’s gesture production and whether an interaction to a robot can minimize the effects of shyness.
• The second goal (2) is to implement the exchange in teaching multimodal communication. As the involved researchers teach class “multimodal communication” in their home countries, they have obtained the knowledge and experience in teaching students with the topic.
• The third goal (3) is to foster international interaction of students and developing possibilities of collaborative supervision in bachelor or master projects. The two goals inevitably involve students in the collaborative research and educational program. Drawing from the exchange established in the first year, both PIs started to collect materials for the classes to foster cross-cultural fundus on multimodal communication.
• Therefore, for the fourth goal (4), a material collection is foreseen. These materials will build a joint course on multimodal communication where students can learn and discuss with international researchers on the topic. All the material will be made publicly accessible. 

Project lead:
Prof. Dr. Katharina Rohlfing (UPB)
Prof. Dr. Kazuki Sekine (Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan)

Further involved researchers:
Nils Tolksdorf
Dr. Angela Grimminger