Perception of Emotion in Torso and Arm Movements on Humanoid Robot Quori

Abstract

Displaying emotional states is an important part of nonverbal communication that can facilitate successful interactions. Facial expressions have been studied for their emotional expression, but this work looks at the capacity of body movements to convey different emotions. This work first generates a large set of nonverbal behaviors with a variety of torso and arm properties on a humanoid robot, Quori. Participants in a user study evaluated how much each movement displayed each of eight different emotions. Results indicate that specific movement properties are associated with particular emotions; such as leaning backward and arms held high displaying surprise and leaning forward displaying sadness. Understanding the emotions associated with certain movements can allow for the design of more appropriate behaviors during interactions with humans and could improve people's perception of the robot.