Methodology and themes of human-robot interaction: a growing research field

Original article can be found at: http://www.intechweb.org/journal.php?id=3 Distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Users are free to read, print, download and use the content or part of it so long as the original author(s) and source are correctly credited.This article discusses challenges of Human-Robot Interaction, which is a highly inter- and multidisciplinary area. Themes that are important in current research in this lively and growing field are identified and selected work relevant to these themes is discussed.Peer reviewe

Interactive spaces for children: gesture elicitation for controlling ground mini-robots

[EN] Interactive spaces for education are emerging as a mechanism for fostering children's natural ways of learning by means of play and exploration in physical spaces. The advanced interactive modalities and devices for such environments need to be both motivating and intuitive for children. Among the wide variety of interactive mechanisms, robots have been a popular research topic in the context of educational tools due to their attractiveness for children. However, few studies have focused on how children would naturally interact and explore interactive environments with robots. While there is abundant research on full-body interaction and intuitive manipulation of robots by adults, no similar research has been done with children. This paper therefore describes a gesture elicitation study that identified the preferred gestures and body language communication used by children to control ground robots. The results of the elicitation study were used to define a gestural language that covers the different preferences of the gestures by age group and gender, with a good acceptance rate in the 6-12 age range. The study also revealed interactive spaces with robots using body gestures as motivating and promising scenarios for collaborative or remote learning activities.This work is funded by the European Development Regional Fund (EDRF-FEDER) and supported by the Spanish MINECO (TIN2014-60077-R). The work of Patricia Pons is supported by a national grant from the Spanish MECD (FPU13/03831). Special thanks are due to the children and teachers of the Col-legi Public Vicente Gaos for their valuable collaboration and dedication.Pons Tomás, P.; Jaén Martínez, FJ. (2020). Interactive spaces for children: gesture elicitation for controlling ground mini-robots. 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How Do You Like Me in This: User Embodiment Preferences for Companion Agents

We investigate the relationship between the embodiment of an artificial companion and user perception and interaction with it. In a Wizard of Oz study, 42 users interacted with one of two embodiments: a physical robot or a virtual agent on a screen through a role-play of secretarial tasks in an office, with the companion providing essential assistance. Findings showed that participants in both condition groups when given the choice would prefer to interact with the robot companion, mainly for its greater physical or social presence. Subjects also found the robot less annoying and talked to it more naturally. However, this preference for the robotic embodiment is not reflected in the users’ actual rating of the companion or their interaction with it. We reflect on this contradiction and conclude that in a task-based context a user focuses much more on a companion’s behaviour than its embodiment. This underlines the feasibility of our efforts in creating companions that migrate between embodiments while maintaining a consistent identity from the user’s point of view

Mirroring to Build Trust in Digital Assistants

We describe experiments towards building a conversational digital assistant that considers the preferred conversational style of the user. In particular, these experiments are designed to measure whether users prefer and trust an assistant whose conversational style matches their own. To this end we conducted a user study where subjects interacted with a digital assistant that responded in a way that either matched their conversational style, or did not. Using self-reported personality attributes and subjects' feedback on the interactions, we built models that can reliably predict a user's preferred conversational style.Comment: Preprin

The Effects of Android Robots Displaying Emotion on Humans: Interactions between Older Adults and Android Robots

Often robots are seen as a means to an end to fulfill a logical objective task. Android robots, on the other hand, provide new possibilities to fulfill emotional tasks and could therefore be integrated into assistive scenarios. We explored this possibility by letting older adults and stakeholders have a conversation with an android robot capable of expressing emotion through facial expressions. The study was carried out with a wizard-of-oz approach and data collected with a mixed methods approach. We found that the participants were encouraged to speak more with the robot due to its smile. Simultaneously, many ethical questions were raised about transparency and manipulation. Our research can give valuable insight into the reaction of older adults to android robots that show emotions.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, CHI 202

Comparing Robot and Human guided Personalization: Adaptive Exercise Robots are Perceived as more Competent and Trustworthy

Schneider S, Kummert F. Comparing Robot and Human guided Personalization: Adaptive Exercise Robots are Perceived as more Competent and Trustworthy. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ROBOTICS. 2020.Learning and matching a user's preference is an essential aspect of achieving a productive collaboration in long-term Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). However, there are different techniques on how to match the behavior of a robot to a user's preference. The robot can be adaptable so that a user can change the robot's behavior to one's need, or the robot can be adaptive and autonomously tries to match its behavior to the user's preference. Both types might decrease the gap between a user's preference and the actual system behavior. However, the Level of Automation (LoA) of the robot is different between both methods. Either the user controls the interaction, or the robot is in control. We present a study on the effects of different LoAs of a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) on a user's evaluation of the system in an exercising scenario. We implemented an online preference learning system and a user-adaptable system. We conducted a between-subject design study (adaptable robot vs. adaptive robot) with 40 subjects and report our quantitative and qualitative results. The results show that users evaluate the adaptive robots as more competent, warm, and report a higher alliance. Moreover, this increased alliance is significantly mediated by the perceived competence of the system. This result provides empirical evidence for the relation between the LoA of a system, the user's perceived competence of the system, and the perceived alliance with it. Additionally, we provide evidence for a proof-of-concept that the chosen preference learning method (i.e., Double Thompson Sampling (DTS)) is suitable for online HRI

Tangible Interaction with In-Car Smart Intelligence

Interacting with a car was once a tactile experience, which is on the decline with the rise of car assistants, where the dominant form of interaction is through screen displays and voice recognition. These interaction modalities within a car are not the only options available. In this paper, we discuss reintroducing tactility into the automotive experience. This work presents a tactile embodiment of an intelligent car system, different from previous studies, to improve engagement and emotional connection between users and future intelligent cars. A prototype tool was designed to embody an intelligent car system. It was used to investigate how to interact with and control a smart-comfort system to improve user comfort. The tool invited users to interact through touch. Users could use their hands to physically agree or disagree with changes made by the system with the system moving in response, creating a bi-directional interaction symbiosis that re-prioritises tactility

Design Research on Robotic Products for School Environments

Advancements in robotic research have led to the design of a number of robotic products that can interact with people. In this research, a school environment was selected for a practical test of robotic products. For this, the robot “Tiro” was built, with the aim of supporting the learning activities of children. The possibility of applying robotic products was then tested through example lessons using Tiro. To do this, the robot design process and user-centred HRI evaluation framework were studied, and observations of robotic products were made via a field study on the basis of these understandings. Three different field studies were conducted, and interactions between children and robotic products were investigated. As a result, it was possible to understand how emotional interaction and verbal interaction affect the development of social relationships. Early results regarding this and coding schemes for video protocol analysis were gained. In this preliminary study, the findings are summarized and several design implications from insight grouping are suggested. These will help robot designers grasp how various factors of robotic products may be adopted in the everyday lives of people. Keywords: Robotic Products Design, HRI Evaluation, User-Centered HRI.</p

Is a humorous robot more trustworthy?

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