Prof. Su-Ling Yeh

Professor Su-Ling Yeh has long been committed to the humanities and social sciences and has collaborated for years with NTU’s electrical engineering and computer science teams, making her one of the few scholars in Taiwan with expertise in both humanities and tech fields. In 2021, her interdisciplinary research earned her an invitation from the UNESCO-affiliated International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence to represent Taiwan alongside international scholars, where she shared global perspectives on human-centered AI.

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In recent years, Professor Yeh has focused on designing service robots that cater to the needs of the elderly using various qualitative and quantitative psychological methods. For instance, she conducted semi-structured interviews to identify specific physical and psychological needs of elderly Taiwanese, such as a preference for robots slightly shorter than the user, which activate only when needed (Chu et al., 2019). Additionally, through questionnaire scoring, she found that elderly individuals' preferences for a robot's human-like appearance increase linearly with its anthropomorphism, differing from younger people's tendencies to dislike highly human-like robots due to the "uncanny valley" effect. This suggests that the design of robots for the elderly can focus on maximizing human-like features without concern for the uncanny valley (Tu et al., 2020).

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Leveraging her extensive research experience, Professor Yeh uses qualitative and quantitative methods, such as semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, to gather diverse data on user experiences, guiding the development of Taiwan's Humanities Knowledge Discovery System.