The effects of situational factors on human-robot interaction experience

Abstract

Systematic and quantitative evaluation of interaction situational factors (i.e., interaction distance, interaction posture, and feedback style) are of great significance for the optimization of human-robot interaction (HRI) experience. Using human factors experiment with three-factor intra-group and inter-group mixed design, twenty subjects were recruited to interact with a robot in different interaction situations. Data on their behavioral performance, subjective perceptions and eye movement behavior were collected and processed by repeated measurement analysis of variance. The results show that the behavioral performance in HRI has no difference across the situational factors. Interaction distance and feedback style have the significant main effects and interaction effects on the proportion of fixation times. In addition, there exists an interaction effect on mean pupil diameter between interaction distance and posture. Moreover, three situational factors have significant interaction effects on user acceptance of interaction mode. The experimental observations provide the important implications for the design of robot emotion expression and for optimal strategies to improve human-robot interaction experience.

Keywords

• intelligent robot
• human-robot interaction
• interaction posture
• interaction distance
• feedback style
• interaction experience