Open Challenges on Generating Referring Expressions for Human-Robot Interaction

Effective verbal communication is crucial in human-robot collaboration. When a robot helps its human partner to complete a task with verbal instructions, referring expressions are commonly employed during the interaction. Despite many studies on generating referring expressions, crucial open challenges still remain for effective interaction. In this work, we discuss some of these challenges (i.e., using contextual information, taking users’ perspectives, and handling misinterpretations in an autonomous manner).