A design model of emotional body expressions in non-humanoid robots

Abstract

Robotic emotional expressions could benefit social communication between humans and robots, if the cues such expressions contain were to be intelligible to human observers. In this paper, we present a design framework for modelling emotionally expressive robotic movements. The framework combines approach-avoidance with Shape and Effort dimensions, derived from Laban, and makes use of anatomical body planes that are general to both humanoid and non-humanoid body forms. An experimental validation study is reported with 34 participants rating an implementation of five expressive behaviours on a non-humanoid robotic platform. The results demonstrate that such expressions can encode basic emotional information, in that the parameters of the proposed design model can convey the meaning of emotional dimensions of valence, arousal and dominance. The framework thus creates a basis for implementing a set of emotional expressions that are appropriately adapted to contexts of human-robot joint activity.