Affectionate Interaction with a Small Humanoid Robot Capable of Recognizing Social Touch Behavior

Abstract

Activity recognition, involving a capability to recognize people's behavior and its underlying significance, will play a crucial role in facilitating the integration of interactive robotic artifacts into everyday human environments. In particular, social intelligence in recognizing affectionate behavior will offer value by allowing companion robots to bond meaningfully with interacting persons. The current article addresses the issue of designing an affectionate haptic interaction between a person and a companion robot by exploring how a small humanoid robot can behave to elicit affection while recognizing touches. We report on an experiment conducted to gain insight into how people perceive three fundamental interactive strategies in which a robot is either always highly affectionate, appropriately affectionate, or superficially unaffectionate (emphasizing positivity, contingency, and challenge, respectively). Results provide insight into the structure of affectionate interaction between humans and humanoid robots—underlining the importance of an interaction design expressing sincere liking, stability and variation—and suggest the usefulness of novel modalities such as warmth and cold.