“Communication breakdowns can reveal what humans expect from AI” – Meet HI postdoctoral researcher Laura Kohonen-Aho

Laura Kohonen-Aho’s background combines social psychology and technology. She holds a master’s degree in social psychology from the University of Helsinki and a doctoral degree in technology from Aalto University. In the Hybrid Intelligence programme, her research is part of the Quality of Life theme, and her position is based in the HealthEduCom Lab in the Research Unit of Health Sciences and Technology. Across different roles and disciplines, her work has been shaped by a continuing interest in human interaction, particularly in technology-mediated settings.

That focus led her to the multidisciplinary Hybrid Intelligence programme, where she now applies her earlier work on virtual reality (VR) to simulation-based education. The position offered a way to continue applying her expertise in VR interaction to a new, practically relevant context: simulation-based education in extended reality (XR), which includes a spectrum of immersive technologies ranging from Augmented to Virtual and Mixed Reality.

“My transition from the Faculty of Humanities to the HI group and Faculty of Medicine has gone smoothly. I see this as a wonderful opportunity to develop my professional identity and broaden my expertise,” she says.

Her long-standing interest in human interaction now guides her research on communication in VR and XR simulations.

How interaction works in the world of XR

Kohonen-Aho’s research examines communication, collaboration, learning and human-AI interaction in XR learning simulations used in healthcare education. She is interested in what happens in interaction moment by moment: how participants respond to one another, how turns are organised, and how immersive environments shape those exchanges.

“I’m fascinated by the sequential organization of talk and interactional practices in technology-mediated interactions and human–AI encounters,” she explains.

Her research questions in relation to Hybrid Intelligence focus on the detailed mechanics of human–AI encounters, and as this is still a relatively new research area, many important questions remain open. In immersive simulations, these include how turn-taking is negotiated between humans and AI-driven avatar characters and how timing affects the flow of interaction. One central question is what breakdowns in communication reveal about human expectations of AI as a conversational partner.

To examine these questions in detail, Kohonen-Aho draws on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA), a video-based approach used to study how talk and other forms of communication are organised in real time. It allows her to analyse how meaning and social order are built through language, timing and multimodal action.

“EMCA focuses on examining the structure and organization of talk-in-interaction, and how participants produce and interpret social actions through language and multimodality in real-time conversations.”

Alongside this, she has also explored mixed methods approaches with colleagues, including combining conversation analytic observations with physiological measures.

Building knowledge across disciplines is both an aspiration and a challenge

Because her research sits at the intersection of several fields, collaboration across disciplines is essential. It involves working with scholars from areas including linguistics, educational sciences, human–computer interaction, health sciences and neuroscience. While this creates opportunities to combine perspectives and methods, it also requires researchers to find a “common language” for describing the phenomena they study.

“Bringing together expertise from different fields offers inspiration and opportunities to learn, broaden one’s worldview and create new ways of thinking. I think conducting multidisciplinary research is both a strength and an aspiration, but at the same time it can be challenging in many ways.”

Kohonen-Aho hopes her research will support the design of more intuitive XR learning environments that include AI. By identifying recurring patterns in interaction, she aims to produce knowledge that can be used in the development of simulations for collaborative learning. Her research highlights that XR environments have their own interactional affordances, distinct from both face-to-face settings and other forms of technology-mediated communication.

From interaction research to the broader aims of Hybrid Intelligence

Within the Hybrid Intelligence programme, her work contributes to broader questions about how humans, AI and digital environments can support learning. By analysing interaction in detail, Kohonen-Aho’s research offers knowledge that can help shape the future of AI-supported education.

For her, Hybrid Intelligence is teamwork between humans and AI, combining different strengths. Humans bring creativity, empathy, critical evaluation and judgement, while AI can quickly spot patterns and process large amounts of data.

“The idea is not to replace human intelligence, but to work together so problems can be solved better than either could alone — ideally while learning from each other.”

Kohonen-Aho sees the HI community as an ideal place for this kind of work, bringing together people from different fields to explore these questions.

Outside of research, she finds balance in exercise, playing second violin in a symphony orchestra, and spending time with family and friends. Her favourite quote applies to both research and life:

“Especially in qualitative data analysis, where it can take time for things to make sense, I love this quote from Gioia et al. (2012, p. 20): ‘You gotta get lost before you can get found.’”