Effects of the Behavior of a Para-operated Robot on the Impression of the Operator: a Preliminary Online Study Considering the Robot-operator Distance

Abstract

While research and applications of operated social robots that can be used as operators’ avatars have been conducted, a para-operated social robot has also been proposed, in which the robot and its operator exist in the same space, and the operator, robot, and interlocutor can interact with each other. From the findings of human-human-robot interaction research, it is known that the robot’s behavior influences the interpersonal relationships of the people involved in the dialog. However, there is no knowledge of how the operator is perceived by the interlocutor when the operations by the operator are unveiled. This paper reports preliminary results from two online surveys conducted to investigate the following question considering the robot-operator distance; Does the impression of the operator improve in unveiled para-operation when the operator operates the robot and has it say favorable utterances? The results of the two video surveys conducted at different distances between the robot and the operator show that the impression of the operator was improved by the robot’s favorable humorous utterances when the distance was close, but not when the distance was further apart. We consider that the findings contribute to the potential application of unveiled para-operated robots and suggest the importance of considering the distance factor in the influence of robots on human-human relationships.