Social robots, also known as service or assistant robots, have been developed to improve the quality of human life in recent years. The design of socially capable and intelligent robots can vary, depending on the target user groups. In this work, we assess the effect of social robots' roles, functions, and communication approaches in the context of a social agent providing service or entertainment to users with developmental disabilities. In this paper, we describe an exploratory study of interface design for a social robot that assists people suffering from developmental disabilities. We developed series of prototypes and tested one in a user study that included three residents with various function levels. This entire study had been recorded for the following qualitative data analysis. Results show that each design factor played a different role in delivering information and in increasing engagement. We also note that some of the fundamental design principles that would work for ordinary users did not apply to our target user group. We conclude that social robots could benefit our target users, and acknowledge that these robots were not suitable for certain scenarios based on the feedback from our users.
When it comes to robot design, there are always moments that we have to decide whether or not to make an aspect more humanoid. @cite_7 suggest that users tend to be more intrigued by robots with characteristics and behaviours that differ from humans. However, this theory, in the field of social psychology, may not apply to the very user group which we are focusing on. Even for one single user group, there can be noticeable individual differences in terms of personalities and temperaments. Thus, decisions to attach personality traits to social robots have to be made cautiously with a subsequent assessment conducted.
@cite_7
2002024051 2157936707 2097404405 2082173922
This article presents the results of video-based Human Robot Interaction (HRI) trials which investigated people's perceptions of different robot appearances and associated attention-seeking features and behaviors displayed by robots with different appearance and behaviors. The HRI trials studied the participants' preferences for various features of robot appearance and behavior, as well as their personality attributions towards the robots compared to their own personalities. Overall, participants tended to prefer robots with more human-like appearance and attributes. However, systematic individual differences in the dynamic appearance ratings are not consistent with a universal effect. Introverts and participants with lower emotional stability tended to prefer the mechanical looking appearance to a greater degree than other participants. It is also shown that it is possible to rate individual elements of a particular robot's behavior and then assess the contribution, or otherwise, of that element to the overall perception of the robot by people. Relating participants' dynamic appearance ratings of individual robots to independent static appearance ratings provided evidence that could be taken to support a portion of the left hand side of Mori's theoretically proposed uncanny valley' diagram. Suggestions for future work are outlined. As robots enter the everyday physical world of people, it is important that they abide by society's unspoken social rules such as respecting people's personal spaces. In this paper, we explore issues related to human personal space around robots, beginning with a review of the existing literature in human-robot interaction regarding the dimensions of people, robots, and contexts that influence human-robot interactions. We then present several research hypotheses which we tested in a controlled experiment (N=30). Using a 2 (robotics experience vs. none: between-participants) × 2 (robot head oriented toward a participant's face vs. legs: within-participants) mixed design experiment, we explored the factors that influence proxemic behavior around robots in several situations: (1) people approaching a robot, (2) people being approached by an autonomously moving robot, and (3) people being approached by a teleoperated robot. We found that personal experience with pets and robots decreases a person's personal space around robots. In addition, when the robot's head is oriented toward the person's face, it increases the minimum comfortable distance for women, but decreases the minimum comfortable distance for men. We also found that the personality trait of agreeableness decreases personal spaces when people approach robots, while the personality trait of neuroticism and having negative attitudes toward robots increase personal spaces when robots approach people. These results have implications for both human-robot interaction theory and design. Social psychology offers a perspective on the acceptance and adoption of technology that is not often considered in technical circles. In this paper, we discuss several adoption-of-technology models with respect to the acceptance of domestic robots: we examine social-psychology literature and apply it directly to human-robot interaction. We raise key points that we feel will be pivotal to how domestic users respond to robots, and provide a set of guidelines that roboticists and designers of robotic interfaces can use to consider and analyze their designs. Ultimately, understanding how users respond to robots and the reasons behind their responses will enable designers to creating domestic robots that are accepted into homes. HRI researchers interested in social robots have made large investments in humanoid robots. There is still sparse evidence that peoples' responses to robots differ from their responses to computer agents, suggesting that agent studies might serve to test HRI hypotheses. To help us understand the difference between people's social interactions with an agent and a robot, we experimentally compared people's responses in a health interview with (a) a computer agent projected either on a computer monitor or life-size on a screen, (b) a remote robot projected life-size on a screen, or (c) a collocated robot in the same room. We found a few behavioral and large attitude differences across these conditions. Participants forgot more and disclosed least with the collocated robot, next with the projected remote robot, and then with the agent. They spent more time with the collocated robot and their attitudes were most positive toward that robot. We discuss tradeoffs for HRI research of using collocated robots, remote robots, and computer agents as proxies of robots.