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Researching Nonverbal Communication Strategies
in Human-Robot Interaction
Hirotaka Osawa and Michita Imai
Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University,
3-14-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Japan
{osawa,michita}@ayu.ics.keio.ac.jp
Abstract.
We propose an alternative approach to find each robot's unique
communication strategies. In this approach, the human manipulator behaves as
if she/he becomes the robot and finds the optimal communication strategies us-
ing attachable and detachable robot's shapes and modalities. We implement the
system including a reconfigurable body robot, an easier manipulation system,
and a recording system to evaluate the validity of our method. We evaluate a
block-assembling task by the system by turning on and off the modality of the
robot's head. Subsequently, the robot's motion during player's motion signifi-
cantly increases whereas the ratio of confirmatory behavior significantly
decreases in the head-fixed design. In this case, the robot leads the users and
the user follows the robot as in the turn-taking communication style of the
Head-free condition.
Keywords:
Design Methodology, Human Robot Interaction, Human Interface.
1
Introduction
Nowadays, robots having various kinds of shapes and modalities can support our lives
in many ways. In this paper, we define shape as the appearance of the robot and mod-
ality as the possible observation and behavior of the robot. There are still questions
about what kind of interaction is required for each robot shape and modality [1]; [2].
Previous studies have designed and implemented the shape and modalities of ro-
bots according to human-human interaction. There are many studies that referred to
humanlike modalities in robots, such as gesture [3], manner [4], timing [5], and bi-
pedal walking [6]. This process is conducted as shown in the two figures on the left
side of Fig. 2. First, the researchers extract a psychological finding from human-
human interaction and create an interaction model from it. Second, they implement
the model to a humanlike robot. Third, they conduct an interaction between a human
and a humanlike robot and confirm that the robot can interact as the proposed model.
Such a design method is widely used in human-robot interaction (HRI) studies
because of the following reasons. First, the researchers can base the study on
psychological findings that have been already investigated. Next, it is easy to compare
the results and the goals. The above-mentioned reasons and method allow the
researchers to incorporate the contributions of previous studies.
