Non-verbal behavior of the robot companion: a contribution to the likeability

Abstract

Modern emotional robots can support multimodal communicative interaction with humans through speech, hand gestures, head movements, eye and mouth animations. In the framework of this work, the contribution of individual active organs of the robot to the overall positive impression created by the robot in the user is investigated. The F-2 robot was used as an experimental platform. The experimental study revealed that users are significantly more likely to prefer a robot that uses gestures, head movements, eyes and mouth animation in its behavior compared to a robot in which the corresponding part of the body is stationary. The impact of robot’s eye movements on the user is not so clear: subjects significantly more often prefer a robot that uses eye movements in behavior, but they relatively rarely notice the difference between the two patterns of robot behavior – the behavior of the robot with fixed eyes and behavior of one with moving eyes.