What Makes Robots Social?: A User’s Perspective on Characteristics for Social Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

A common description of a social robot is for it to be capable of communicating in a humanlike manner. However, a description of what communicating in a ‘humanlike manner’ means often remains unspecified. This paper provides a set of social behaviors and certain specific features social robots should possess based on user’s experience in a longitudinal home study, discusses whether robots can actually be social, and presents some recommendations to build better social robots.