Feel Me If You Can

Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of robot types and robot's tactility types on a users' perception toward the robot, we conducted a 2(robot types: autonomous robot vs. telepresence robot) x 2(tactility types: human-like vs. product-like) within-participants experiment (N=24). Participants felt a greater sense of social presence toward a telepresence robot than an autonomous robot. In addition, participants felt a greater sense of social presence toward a human-like tactility type robot than a product-like tactility type robot. In regards to shyness, participants felt more shyness toward a human-like tactility type robot than a product-like tactility type robot and there was a significant interaction effect between robot types and robot's tactility types.