In human–robot cooperation, it is effective for a robot to ask a human partner for help to reduce the time required for a task. However, the person might not be able to help the robot if she or he is engaged in something else. In this study, we focused on the person’s subjective estimation of the time for a task and investigated its effect on the likelihood of agreeing to help the robot. For this purpose

Lower limb exoskeletons (LLE) are robotic devices developed to assist walk. In the field of healthcare, this technology has been available for almost a decade, yet it still faces important acceptance issues. While LLE were first developed for patients with spinal cord injuries, we expect their use to expand to everyday settings to benefit other populations, namely that of older people with reduced

In this paper, we investigate the effect of robot social behaviors in privacy-sensitive situations that are designed to reduce concerns of users regarding privacy invasion. As social robots ought to spend considerable time with humans, there has been research on user privacy protection. However, previous work mostly focuses on technical approaches not to disclose private information such as video/audio

Whereas the past literature on automatic personality synthesis mostly used human-like cues such as synthetic voice, artificial face/head, and gestures, Lee et al. [13] proposed a personality synthesis model for non-humanoid, information seeking mobile agents, in which the migration behavior of the agents is exploited to exhibit their personality. Although they observed promising results from a subjective

Autonomous mobile robots that operate in environments with people are expected to be able to deal with human proxemics and social distances. Previous research investigated how robots can approach persons or how to implement human-aware navigation algorithms. However, experimental research on how robots can avoid a person in a comfortable way is largely missing. The aim of the current work is to experimentally

This paper proposes a new method that guides humans through an exhibition corridor using a mobile robot mounted with a projector. Conventional guidance delivered by mobile robots is problematic because the robot cannot move when people gather round; alternatively, people may leave the robot and stray from the guidance route. In such cases, the robot must instruct people to move by a vocal or display

Attachment theory is a research area in psychology that has enjoyed decades of successful study, and has subsequently become explored in realms beyond that of the original infant-caregiver bonds. Now, attachment is studied in relation to pets, symbols (such as deities), objects, technologies, and notably for our purposes, robots. When we discuss attachment in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), is “attachment”

In order to navigate safely and effectively with humans in close proximity, robots must be capable of predicting the future motions of humans. This study first consolidates human studies in motion, intention, and preference into a discretized human model that can readily be used in robotics decision making algorithms. Cooperative Markov Decision Process (Co-MDP), a novel framework that improves upon

The rapid rise of computing power has prompted the desire to develop more social, human-like robots. Quantitatively comparing different computing systems on their ability to simulate human qualities has been a major technical challenge. A recent framework put forth by Gray et al. (Science 315(5812):619, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1134475) provides promise as a new means for comparing robots

Mind perception is a fundamental part of anthropomorphism and has recently been suggested to be a dual process. The current research studied the influence of implicit and explicit mind perception on a robot’s right to be protected from abuse, both in terms of participants condemning abuse that befell the robot as well as in terms of participants’ tendency to humiliate the robot themselves. Results

This is the first Italian study to examine views on sexbots of adult male sex offenders and non-offenders, and their perceptions of sexbots as sexual partners, and sexbots as a means to prevent sexual violence. In order to explore these aspects 344 adult males were involved in the study. The study carried out two types of comparisons. 100 male sex offenders were compared with 244 male non-offenders

Care robots are likely to perform increasingly sophisticated caring activities that some will consider comforting and valuable. They will get increasingly humanlike and lifelike. This paper addresses the conceptual question: Even if robots can assist and ease people’s suffering, can such machines provide humanistic care? Arguably, humanistic care is the most humanly distinctive and deepest form of

Children with severe motor impairment due to cerebral palsy have difficulties engaging in play, although they want to play games that typically developing children play. The barriers imposed by motor impairments against engaging in play can be addressed through the use of robots. We aim to identify how children, who have extensive experience of play, imagine what a robot is and what features would

The slogan “robots will pervade our environment” has become a reality. Drones and ground robots are used for commercial purposes while semi-autonomous driving systems are standard accessories to traditional cars. However, while our eyes have been riveted on dangers and accidents arising from drones falling and autonomous cars’ crashing, much less attention has been ported to dangers arising from the

The objective of this study was to understand how consumers react and respond to a service experience provided by the robot, Pepper. To form our predictions, we applied and tested an extended version of the technology acceptance model (TAM). For the method, pre-recorded gestures were used to attract people to interact with Pepper, and participants were asked to pose questions to the robot for 5 to

The wearable powered exoskeletons have obtained great interest in enhancing the ability of people to perform heavy physical labor (e.g., soldiers transporting military supplies in high altitude areas and couriers carrying express goods in the logistics industry). A key problem we care about is how to make the exoskeletons provide efficient aids for people in complex environment (e.g., different terrains

The topic of trust has attracted increasing interest within HRI research, and is particularly relevant in the context of social robots and their assistance of older people at home. To make this abstract concept of trust more tangible for developers of robotic technologies and to connect it with older people’s living spaces and their daily practices, we propose a light-weight method drawing on elicitation

This article analyses three aspects of human and robotic eyes: (1) the eye as an object that evokes visceral reactions from observers when it is exposed or threatened; (2) the eye and brain, sensor and computer as mediators of vision and interpreters of visual worlds; and (3) the gaze as a mode of communication in interpersonal/human–robot interaction. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this article

Knowledge production within the interdisciplinary field of human–robot interaction (HRI) with social robots has accelerated, despite the continued fragmentation of the research domain. Together, these features make it hard to remain at the forefront of research or assess the collective evidence pertaining to specific areas, such as the role of emotions in HRI. This systematic review of state-of-the-art

This paper introduces an original concept (projective anthropomorphism) towards exploring a psychological dimension that is irreducible to the forms of anthropomorphism investigated in both cognitive science and social robotics. Projective anthropomorphism is an unconscious bias towards anticipating humanlike characteristics in robots. An overview of the variety of ways in which projection has been

To achieve robot navigation in crowded environments having high densities of moving people, it is insufficient to simply consider humans as moving obstacles and avoid collisions with them. That is, the impact of an approaching robot on human movements must be considered as well. Moreover, various navigation methods have been tested in their own environments in the literature, which made them difficult

This paper presents two experiments focusing on perception of mechanical sounds produced by expressive robot movement and blended sonifications thereof. In the first experiment, 31 participants evaluated emotions conveyed by robot sounds through free-form text descriptions. The sounds were inherently produced by the movements of a NAO robot and were not specifically designed for communicative purposes

This paper discuss the phenomenon of empathy in social robotics and is divided into three main parts. Initially, I analyse whether it is correct to use this concept to study and describe people’s reactions to robots. I present arguments in favour of the position that people actually do empathise with robots. I also consider what circumstances shape human empathy with these entities. I propose that

Language-enabled robots with moral reasoning capabilities will inevitably face situations in which they have to respond to human commands that might violate normative principles and could cause harm to humans. We believe that it is critical for robots to be able to reject such commands. We thus address the two key challenges of when and how to reject norm-violating directives. First, we present research

One of the primary, if not most critical, difficulties in the design and implementation of autonomous systems is the black-boxed nature of the decision-making structures and logical pathways. How human values are embodied and actualised in situ may ultimately prove to be harmful if not outright recalcitrant. For this reason, the values of stakeholders become of particular significance given the risks

Do some individuals benefit more from social robots than others? Using a second language (L2) vocabulary lesson as an example, this study examined how individual differences in attitudes toward robots, anxiety in learning L2, and personality traits may be related to the learning outcomes. One hundred and two native Turkish-speaking adults were taught eight English words in a one-on-one lesson either

We argue for an interdisciplinary approach that connects existing models and theories in Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) to traditions in communication theory. In this article, we review existing models of interpersonal communication and interaction models that have been applied and developed in the contexts of HRI and social robotics. We argue that often, symmetric models are proposed in which the human

Emotional support in the context of psychological caregiving is an important aspect of human–human interaction that can significantly increase well-being. In this study, we tested if non-verbal gestures of a non-humanoid robot can increase emotional support in a human–human interaction. Sixty-four participants were invited in pairs to take turns in disclosing a personal problem and responding in a

This trial represents the final stage of the CARESSES project which aimed to develop and evaluate a culturally competent artificial intelligent system embedded into social robots to support older adult wellbeing. A parallel group, single-blind randomised controlled trial was conducted across older adult care homes in England and Japan. Participants randomly allocated to the Experimental Group or Control

The social robotics field has been growing in prominence. Many developed countries have begun to apply such robots in various fields, such as shopping reception, education, home companion, medical care, and security. However, expectations of social robots have also changed. In addition to performing their specific tasks, social robots are also expected to consider users’ emotional needs. Therefore

This paper presents a human-robot interaction (HRI) study of a dedicated Mission Specialist interface for performing telemanipulation tasks using a small unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV). Current literature suggests that the successful completion of aerial manipulation tasks in real-world environments requires human input due to challenges in autonomous perception and control. Visual information of

Is it true that parents always prioritize educational effectiveness when selecting childcare services? The current study identified the potential requirements of dual-income parents toward social robots’ diverse childcare functions (e.g., socialization, education, entertainment, and consultation). The results revealed that parental attitudes toward robots were made more positive by all the childcare

The great diversity of end-user tasks ranging from manufacturing environments to personal homes makes pre-programming robots for general purpose applications extremely challenging. In fact, teaching robots new actions from scratch that can be reused for previously unseen tasks remains a difficult challenge and is generally left up to robotics experts. In this work, we present iRoPro, an interactive

Taking the perspective of others is critical for both human–human and human–robot interactions. Previous studies using the dot perspective task have revealed that people could automatically process what other people can see. In this study, following the classical dot perspective task, we showed that Chinese participants could not automatically process humanoid robot avatars’ perspective when only judging

Recent high-profile failures of domestic robotic products suggest more research is needed on factors that impact consumers’ willingness to purchase robots, and the success rates of the consumer robotics industry compared with other innovative technologies. Using data from two crowdfunding sites (Kickstarter and Indiegogo), we summarize the applications, forms, prices, contexts of use, target populations

Robots are becoming more available for workplace collaboration, but many questions remain. Are people actually willing to assign collaborative tasks to robots? And if so, exactly which tasks will they assign to what kinds of robots? Here we leverage psychological theories on person-job fit and mind perception to investigate task assignment in human–robot collaborative work. We propose that people will

Understanding people’s perceptions and inferences about social robots and, thus, their responses toward them, constitutes one of the most pervasive research themes in the field of Human–Robot interaction today. We herein augment and extend this line of work by investigating, for the first time, the novel proposition that one’s implicit self-theory orientation (underlying beliefs about the malleability

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-021-00772-y

Embodied Virtual Agents (EVAs) are used today as interfaces for social robots, educational tutors, game counterparts, medical assistants, as well as companions for the elderly and individuals with psychological or behavioral conditions. Forming a reliable and trustworthy interaction is critical to the success and acceptability of this new form of interaction. In this paper, we report on a study investigating

Both designers and users of social robots tend to anthropomorphize robots. Focusing on the question how to conceptualize the relation between robots and humans, this paper first outlines two opposite philosophical views regarding this relation, which are connected to various normative responses to anthropomorphism and anthropomorphization. Then it argues for a third view: navigating between what it

With this study we wanted to extend the research on personality traits and the similarity- and complementarity-attraction effects in HRI, and explore which demographic variables might affect them. For that purpose, we conducted a study with 46 participants under a pairwise robot comparison experimental design, combining verbal and non-verbal behaviors, and complementing the results with qualitative

Soft robotics technology has been proposed for a number of applications that involve human–robot interaction. It is commonly presumed that soft robots are perceived as more natural, and thus more appealing, than rigid robots, an assumption that has not hitherto been tested or validated. This study investigates human perception of and physical interaction with soft robots as compared with rigid robots

The present article reports a computer-aided teaching strategy, which is novel, using a MATLAB toolbox (i.e. SimMechanics) for project-based learning in a mechanical engineering robotics course (i.e. robot analysis). The effectiveness of the proposed teaching strategy was evaluated using multiple lenses of critical reflection such as student-reflection using numerous students’ surveys, and students’

We present the Dynamic Stack Decider (DSD), a lightweight open-source control architecture. It combines different well-known approaches and is inspired by behavior trees as well as hierarchical state machines. The DSD allows to design and structure complex behavior of robots as well as software agents while providing easy maintainability. Challenges that often occur in robotics, i.e., a dynamic environment

In educational HRI, it is generally believed that a robots behavior has a direct effect on the engagement of a user with the robot, the task at hand and also their partner in case of a collaborative activity. Increasing this engagement is then held responsible for increased learning and productivity. The state of the art usually investigates the relationship between the behaviors of the robot and the

For some years now, the use of social, anthropomorphic robots in various situations has been on the rise. These are robots developed to interact with humans and are equipped with corresponding extremities. They already support human users in various industries, such as retail, gastronomy, hotels, education and healthcare. During such Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios, physical touch plays a central

This is a case study focused on the development of LOVOT, a consumer home robot that went on sale in 2019. Since its unveiling in 2018, approximately 20,000 people have visited the LOVOT demonstration event as of the end of July 2019. In practical terms, LOVOT lives at home with the user long-term, similar to a companion animal; LOVOT performs continuous natural motion for user comfort. We applied

This article presents an exploratory study aimed at: (i) understanding participants’ first impression of the Cyton Gamma 1500, a small machine-like robot arm, and (ii) designing robot body language to convey certain intentions with regard to a personal assistant robotic application. The between-group study comprised of three distinct groups of participants. Each group had a different first encounter

Currently, the cognitive load imposed by tasks with different complexity during collaborative learning or pair learning has not been well studied. This study examined the effect of three types of tasks with different complexity on students’ cognitive load during pair learning. We randomly selected a total of 76 pupils to participate in a one-semester robotics course for the experiment. The results

For the social robot with serial elastic actuator, the joint dynamics model has the problems of strong coupling and high nonlinear, and the traditional PD control algorithm cannot achieve accurate trajectory tracking effect on the joint position of social robot using series elastic actuator. Therefore, an optimized Radial basis function (RBF) neural network adaptive control algorithm was proposed.

Prior research into automated dental procedures has largely focused on design and engineering issues; however, there is very little research that investigates the public’s perceptions of, or their willingness to undergo, robotic dentistry. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to better understand the characteristics of a person who would be willing to undergo robotic dental cleanings by building

Young people with cystic fibrosis face significant physical discomfort and an extensive treatment burden that often includes lengthy hospital stays and increased risk for psychological distress. With many treatments being critically important, parents are often compelled to act as translators between the child patient and medical staff. An inadvertent consequence of this dynamic is that young patients

Emotional expressiveness in robots has attracted increased research interest, and development of this technology has progressed in recent years. A wide variety of methods employing facial expressions, speech, body movements, and colors indicating emotional expression have been proposed. Although previous studies explored how emotional expressions are recognized and affect human behavior, cooperative

A basic notion of transparency in automated systems design is the need to support user tracking and understanding of system states. Many usability principles for complex systems design implicitly target the concept of transparency. In this study, we made comparison of a “baseline” control interface mimicking an existing available UAV ground control station with an “enhanced” interface designed with

Social signals are commonly used to facilitate the usability of humanoid robots. While providing the robot with an extended expressibility, these signals are often applied only in structured interactions where parts of the familiarization or farewell processes are disregarded in the evaluation. In order to establish the consideration of a more comprehensive view, this article presents a holistic model

Increasingly, people must interact with robot technologies. In this research, we examined attitudes toward robots as equipment and as coworkers and whether these attitudes are affected by the autonomy of the robot among participants living in the United States (Study 1: N = 1003; Study 2: N = 969). Study 1 revealed that respondents had a more positive attitude toward robots as equipment than as coworkers

Intelligent agents are part of the smartphones, smart speakers, and home robots that millions of us own and interact with regularly. However, little is known about if or how these agents should be embodied. Additionally, as conversations with agents move from heavily structured and transactional to more flexible and, at times, social, embodiment may play a more nuanced and variable role. This paper

Older adults residing in long term care (LTC) settings commonly experience apathy, a neuropsychiatric condition with adverse consequences of increased morbidity and mortality. Activities that combine social, physical and cognitive stimuli are most effective in engaging older adults with apathy but are time consuming and require significant staff resources. We present the results from an initial pilot