The humans on the teams also improved their teamwork skills, said Illah R. Nourbakhsh, professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and author of the book “Robot Futures,” published this month by M.I.T. Press. “In the future, this idea of cross-training will turn out to be really important as robots start to work shoulder-to-shoulder with us,” he said. “We are not very good at adopting the point of view of a robot. This study showed that we can learn, though, with the right signals.”

Dr. Christensen of Georgia Tech said: “Robots of the future won’t just be in manufacturing. Almost any area could have a robot that would help make our life easier,” whether “lifting patients in hospital beds or helping at home.

“But they have to be safe, and they have to have the kind of anticipation that Julie Shah is working on, because they have to be able to automatically figure out what we need help with,” he said.

Gentle, helpful robots aren’t just being created in labs; they are also arriving in the marketplace. Since January, Rethink Robotics of Boston has been sending customers its two-armed robot called Baxter, which can work uncaged, moving among people. “We are shipping robots every day and have a backlog of orders of about three months,” said Rodney Brooks, Rethink’s founder, chairman and chief technology officer.

Baxter, which costs $22,000, can lift objects from a conveyor belt. “You don’t have to tell it the exact velocity,” Dr. Brooks said. “It sees objects and grabs them, matching its speed to the speed of the object.”

Baxter is used in manufacturing plants and shops of varying sizes. One example is the Rodon Group, a plastic injection molding company in Hatfield, Pa., where Baxter packs boxes on the factory floor.