Do People Change their Behavior when the Handler is next to the Robot?

It is increasingly common for people to work alongside robots in a variety of situations. When a robot is completing a task, the handler of the robot may be present. It is important to know how people interact with the robot when the handler is next to the robot. Our study focuses on whether handler’s presence can affect human’s behavior toward the robot. Our experiment targets two different scenarios (handler present and handler absent) in order to find out human’s behavior change toward the robot. Results show that in the handler present scenario, people are less willing to interact with the robot. However, when people do interact with the robot, they tend to interact with both the handler and the robot. This suggests that researchers should consider the presence of a handler when designing for human-robot interactions

Social Impact of Recharging Activity in Long-Term HRI and Verbal Strategies to Manage User Expectations During Recharge

Social robots perform tasks to help humans in their daily activities. However, if they fail to fulfill expectations this may affect their acceptance. This work investigates the service degradation caused by recharging, during which the robot is socially inactive. We describe two studies conducted in an ecologically valid office environment. In the first long-term study (3 weeks), we investigated the service degradation caused by the recharging behavior of a social robot. In the second study, we explored the social strategies used to manage users’ expectations during recharge. Our findings suggest that the use of verbal strategies (transparency, apology, and politeness) can make robots more acceptable to users during recharge

Now you feel it, now you don’t:How observing robots and people can make you feel eerie

Abstract Robots seemingly in possession of an experiential mind, as well as humans allegedly incapable thereof, have been reported to elicit feelings of eeriness in their perceivers. The current work re-examined this claim, asking participants to rate both robots and humans in various social situations regarding their mind capacities (e.g., emotional capability, intelligence), non-mind qualities (e.g., animacy, usefulness), and overall appeal (e.g., eeriness, likeability). It was found that feelings of eeriness towards both targets formed a distinct emotional response that was separable from simple dislike. Yet, unexpectedly, eeriness towards both targets intensified, the less they were seen as possessing a typical human mind. For robots, however, this association was less consistent. Moreover, eeriness towards robots, but not towards humans, was most strongly predicted by a lack of perceived usefulness. These results indicate that mind attributions affect people’s attitudes towards each other more strongly than their attitudes towards humanoid robots.</jats:p

A Review of Personality in Human Robot Interactions

Personality has been identified as a vital factor in understanding the quality of human robot interactions. Despite this the research in this area remains fragmented and lacks a coherent framework. This makes it difficult to understand what we know and identify what we do not. As a result our knowledge of personality in human robot interactions has not kept pace with the deployment of robots in organizations or in our broader society. To address this shortcoming, this paper reviews 83 articles and 84 separate studies to assess the current state of human robot personality research. This review: (1) highlights major thematic research areas, (2) identifies gaps in the literature, (3) derives and presents major conclusions from the literature and (4) offers guidance for future research.Comment: 70 pages, 2 figure

Evaluating the Robot Personality and Verbal Behavior of Domestic Robots Using Video-Based Studies

Walters ML, Lohse M, Hanheide M, et al. Evaluating the Robot Personality and Verbal Behavior of Domestic Robots Using Video-Based Studies. Advanced Robotics. 2011;25(18):2233-2254.Robots are increasingly being used in domestic environments and should be able to interact with inexperienced users. Human-human interaction and human-computer interaction research findings are relevant, but often limited because robots are different from both humans and computers. Therefore, new human-robot interaction (HRI) research methods can inform the design of robots suitable for inexperienced users. A video-based HRI (VHRI) methodology was here used to carry out a multi-national HRI user study for the prototype domestic robot BIRON (BIelefeld RObot companioN). Previously, the VHRI methodology was used in constrained HRI situations, while in this study HRIs involved a series of events as part of a 'home-tour' scenario. Thus, the present work is the first study of this methodology in extended HRI contexts with a multi-national approach. Participants watched videos of the robot interacting with a human actor and rated two robot behaviors (Extrovert and Introvert). Participants' perceptions and ratings of the robot's behaviors differed with regard to both verbal interactions and person following by the robot. The study also confirms that the VHRI methodology provides a valuable means to obtain early user feedback, even before fully working prototypes are available. This can usefully guide the future design work on robots, and associated verbal and non-verbal behaviors. (C) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 201

Evaluating the Robot Personality and Verbal Behavior of Domestic Robots Using Video-Based Studies

Michael Walters, Manja Lohse, Marc Hanheide, Britta Wrede, Dag Syrdal, Kheng Koay, Anders Green, Helge Huttenrauch, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Gerhard Sagerer, Kerstin Severinson-Eklundh, 'Evaluating the Robot Personality and Verbal Behavior of Domestic Robots Using Video-Based Studies' in Yangsheng Xu, Huihuan Qian, and Xinyu Wu Eds., Household Service Robotics, (Elsevier, 2014), ISBN: 9780128009437Robots are increasingly being used in domestic environments and should be able to interact with inexperienced users. Human-human interaction and human-computer interaction research findings are relevant, but often limited because robots are different from both humans and computers. Therefore, new human-robot interaction (HRI) research methods can identify the design of robots suitable for inexperienced users. A video-based HRI (VHRI) methodology was used to carry out a multi-national HRI user study for the prototype domestic robot BIRON (BIelefeld RObot companioN). Previously, the VHRI methodology was used in constrained HRI situations, while in this study HRIs involved a series of events as part of a "home tour" scenario. Thus, the present chapter is the first study of this methodology in extended HRI contexts with a multi-national approach. Participants watched videos of the robot interacting with a human actor and rated two robot behaviors (Extrovert and Introvert). Participants' perceptions and ratings of the robot's behaviors differed with regard to both verbal interactions and person following by the robot. The study also confirms that the VHRI methodology provides a valuable means to obtain early user feedback, even before fully working prototypes are available. This can usefully guide the future design studies on robots, and associated verbal and non-verbal behaviors

What are primary school teachers' attitudes toward introversion in students?

The existing literature suggests a potential implicit social desirability associated with the extrovert personality and as a result, extroverts are accommodated across various work and educational settings, leading to a better person-environment fit and therefore better wellbeing. This study adopted a social constructionist perspective to explore whether teacher attitude to students described in terms of introversion/extroversion, varied as a function of positive and negative framing, as well as teachers’ own levels of extraversion. This was a quantitative mixed design. Participants were 334 primary school teachers. Teachers were presented with vignettes via a web-based survey, depicting hypothetical children displaying typical, extrovert, or introvert behaviours in the classroom and responded to follow-up questions assessing their attitudes. Teachers also completed a self-report measure of extraversion. The results indicated a relationship between teacher attitude and framing and teacher attitude and student personality type. The findings appear to place the cause of lower attitudinal rating within the teachers’ perception of the student themselves rather than the teachers’ perception of their own ability to teach introvert students. Attitudinal ratings did not vary with teachers’ own level of extraversion. Results are discussed in terms of their educational implications for the social and academic functioning of introvert students. This research provides an original contribution to the field of educational psychology within the Irish context, and offers insights that would benefit the fields of education and psychology, more generally.N