Peter Kahn

Position: Professor at the University of Washington, Department of Psychology

Links: Website

Expertise Areas: Psychology, Human Interaction with Nature, Technological Development and its Effects

Contact: pkahn@u.washington.edu

Bio:

Peter H. Kahn, Jr. is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Human Interaction With Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Lab. The HINTS Lab seeks to address – from a psychological stance – two world trends that are powerfully reshaping human existence: (1) the degradation if not destruction of large parts of the natural world, and (2) unprecedented technological development, both in terms of its computational sophistication and pervasiveness. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. His publications have appeared in such journals as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, and Journal of Systems Software, as well as in such proceedings as CH, HRI, and Ubicomp. His research projects are currently being funded by the National Science Foundation.

Publications:

Kahn, Peter, and Patricia Hasbach, eds. 2013. The Rediscovery of the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, Peter, and Patricia Hasbach, eds. 2012. Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, Peter. 2011. Technological Nature: Adaptation and the Future of Human Life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, Peter, and Stephen Kellert, eds. 2002. Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, Peter. 1999. The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, P. H., Jr. (2011). Technological nature: Adaptation and the future of human life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kahn, P. H., Jr., & Shen, S. (2017). NOC NOC, who’s there? A new ontological category (NOC) for social robots. In N. Budwig, E. Turiel, & P. D. Zelazo (Eds.), New Perspectives on Human Development (pp. 106-122). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Kahn, P. H., Jr., (in press). Consciousness, authenticity, and transcendence of social robots. To appear in J. Seibt, R. Hakli, & M. Nørskov (Eds.), Robo-philosophy: Philosophy of, for, and by social robotics. MIT Press.

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Gary, H. E., & Shen, S. (2013). Children’s social relationships with current and near-future robots. Child Development Perspectives, 13, 32-37. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12011

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Freier, N. G., Severson, R. L., Gill, B. T., Ruckert, J. H., & Shen, S. (2012). “Robovie, You’ll Have to Go into the Closet Now”: Children’s social and moral relationships with a humanoid robot. Developmental Psychology, 48, 303-314. doi:10.1037/a0027033

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Gill, B. T., Ruckert, J. H., Shen, S., Gary, H., Reichert, A. L., Freier, N. G., Severson, R. L. (2012). Do People Hold a Humanoid Robot Morally Accountable for the Harm It Causes? Proceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 33-40). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. (Best Paper Award.)

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Gill, B. T., Shen, S., Ruckert, J. H., & Gary, H. E. (2016). Human creativity can be facilitated through interacting with a social robot. Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 173-180). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Gill, B. T., Shen, S., Gary, H. E., Ruckert, J. H. (2015). Will people keep the secret of a humanoid robot? – Psychological intimacy in HRI.  Proceedings of the 10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 173-180). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/2696454.2696486. (Acceptance rate 25%).

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., Shen, S., Gary, H. E., & Ruckert, J. H. (2014). Creative collaboration with a social robot. Proceedings of UbiComp2014 (pp. 99-103). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/2632048.2632058.

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