Personality perception of robot avatar tele-operators

Abstract

Nowadays a significant part of human-human interaction takes place over distance. Tele-operated robot avatars, in which an operator's behaviours are portrayed by a robot proxy, have the potential to improve distance interaction, e.g., improving social presence and trust. However, having communication mediated by a robot changes the perception of the operator's appearance and behaviour, which have been shown to be used alongside vocal cues in judging personality. In this paper we present a study that investigates how robot mediation affects the way the personality of the operator is perceived. More specifically, we aim to investigate if judges of personality can be consistent in assessing personality traits, can agree with one another, can agree with operators' self-assessed personality, and shift their perceptions to incorporate characteristics associated with the robot's appearance. Our experiments show that (i) judges utilise robot appearance cues along with operator vocal cues to make their judgements, (ii) operators' arm gestures reproduced on the robot aid personality judgements, and (iii) how personality cues are perceived and evaluated through speech, gesture and robot appearance is highly operator-dependent. We discuss the implications of these results for both tele-operated and autonomous robots that aim to portray personality.