A Study on the Impression Received from the Response of a Communication Robot

Abstract

In this study, we examine how the conversation with the communication robot affects the user's mental status using the subjective measurement method called Visual Analog Scale (VAS). The main purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of mental health improvement using robot and IT technology. First, we introduce VAS as a subjective evaluation method and subjective measurement applications “VASpad” for smartphones. The development of smartphone applications in recent years is remarkable, smartphones are rapidly becoming familiar to us. In consideration of this situation, we propose a transition from conventional VAS measurement to new VAS measurement that uses smartphone. Consequently, it is expected that the burden of tabulation work is reduced. Next, we describe the experiment using a communication robot. After user talked with the robot for a few minutes, subjective evaluation was performed to the user using VASpad for 10 question items. This subjective evaluation was carried out in two ways, the case where the robot's conversation was smooth and the case where it was not smooth. Finally, we analyze and consider the experimental results. The expected results were obtained when the conversation was smooth, however a different trend was obtained when the conversation was not smooth.