A Wizard of Oz Study of Human Interest Towards Robot Initiated Human-Robot Interaction

• Published in: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) pp. 515 - 521
• Main Authors: Chapa Sirithunge, H. P., Muthugala, M. A. Viraj J., Jayasekara, A. G. Buddhika P., Chandima, D. P.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.08.2018
• Subjects: Attitude control; emotional intelligence; Human-robot interaction; interaction initiation; Service robots; Social intelligence; Task analysis; wizard of oz
• ISSN: 1944-9437
• DOI: 10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525583

Service robots have become a widely used tool in human-friendly assistive tasks in many aspects including social environments. Maintaining a sustainable interaction with humans is essential in performing assistive tasks in this regard. Therefore, a robot must be equipped with intelligent cognitive skills in decision making as well as in making friendly relationships with its human user. Human-like capabilities such as initiating a conversation at the right moment without distracting and maintaining an appropriate interaction are important cues in this context. This paper presents a human study conducted by means of a wizard-of-oz (WoZ) experiment to identify the behavioral features in humans that can be utilized by an assistive robot in a domestic environment to assess the situation prior to an interaction. Both verbal and nonverbal responses of participants towards an interaction initiated by a robot were recorded and analyzed to identify human behavioral changes that portray an interest towards interaction. The experiment was conducted in a simulated domestic environment and findings of the experiment are presented and discussed so that these findings could be made use of when designing human-like social robots in future. Furthermore, human behavioral changes observed during the study are analyzed and critical observations are highlighted.