Exploring psychophysiological methods for human–robot collaboration in construction

Psychophysiological methods present a promising approach to fostering enhanced mutual communication and collaboration between human workers and robots. Despite their potential, there is still limited understanding of how to effectively integrate psychophysiological methods to improve human–robot collaboration (HRC) in construction. This paper addresses this gap by critically reviewing the use of psychophysiological methods for HRC within construction environments, based on a concept-methodology-value philosophical framework. The review explores different interaction modalities of implementing psychophysiological measures to communicate or control robots in construction. The analysis reveals that measuring brain activity using electroencephalography is the most widely used psychophysiological method, while the majority of the works are still at the proof-of-concept stage in laboratory and virtual construction environments and lack empirical evidence. Four potential research directions are proposed: the fusion of multi-modal psychophysiological signals, enriching field experimental settings for better generalizability, leveraging advanced biocompatible or contactless technologies for effective signal detection in construction scenarios, and examining the practicality of psychophysiological methods to construction HRC. The findings should benefit subsequent exploration and practical applications of psychophysiological methods to enable the better implementation of robots and support HRC in construction.