A User Study of a Humanoid Robot as a Social Mediator for Two-Person Conversations
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A User Study of a Humanoid Robot as a Social Mediator for Two-Person Conversations Yasir Tahir1 · Justin Dauwels2 · Daniel Thalmann1 · Nadia Magnenat Thalmann1 Accepted: 6 April 2018 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract In this work we have enhanced the perception of a humanoid robot by integrating it with a social state estimation system. We present a user study of the humanoid Nao robot as a social mediator, comprising two sets of experiments. In the first sets of experiments, the participants rate their understanding of feedback messages delivered via the Nao robot. They also assess two modalities to deliver the feedback: audio only and audio combined with gestures. In almost all cases there is an improvement of 10% or more when audio and gesture modalities are combined to deliver feedback messages. For the second sets of experiments the sociofeedback system was integrated with the Nao robot. The participants engage in two-person scenario-based conversations while the Nao robot acts as a mediator. The sociofeedback system analyzes the conversations and provides feedback via Nao. Subsequently, the participants assess the received sociofeedback with respect to various aspects, including its content, appropriateness, and timing. Participants also evaluate their overall perception of Nao as social mediator via the Godspeed questionnaire. The results indicate that the social feedback system is able to detect the social scenario with 93.8% accuracy and that Nao can be effectively used to provide sociofeedback in discussions. The results of this paper pave the way to natural human–robot interactions for social mediators in multi-party dialog systems. Keywords Sociometrics · Dialog · Audio-Visual · Human behavior
1 Introduction One of the key objectives of research and development in robotics is to design various robots that can assist humans in everyday domestic environments. Nowadays, robots are increasingly being viewed as social entities to be integrated in our daily lives. Socially interactive robots are used to communicate, express, and perceive emotions, maintain social relationships, interpret natural cues, and develop social competencies [1,2]. Prominent application scenarios for such robots are manifold, and span from shopping robots [3] and tour guides [4] to home assistance and care [5,6], etc.
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Justin Dauwels [email protected] Yasir Tahir [email protected]
1
Institute for Media Innovation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
2
School for Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
With increasing demand for robots for domestic environments, research on human–robot interaction (HRI) has gained more importance. In order to enhance human–robot interaction, the need for integration of social intelligence in such robots has become a necessity [7–9]. Socially intelligent robots should effectively engage with humans and maintain a natural interaction with them over extended periods of time
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