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Article published In: Interaction Studies
Vol. 17:3 (2016) ► pp.321–347

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Do relative positions and proxemics affect the engagement in a Human-Robot collaborative scenario?

 | University of Birmingham, UK
 | Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
 | University of Birmingham, UK
 | Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
 | Uppsala University, Sweden
Published online: 30 March 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17.3.01pap
Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of relative position and proxemics in the engagement process involved in Human-Robot collaboration. We evaluate the differences between two experimental placement conditions (frontal vs. lateral) for an autonomous robot in a collaborative task with a user across two different types of robot behaviours (helpful vs. neutral). The study evaluated placement and behaviour types around a touch table with 80 participants by measuring gaze, smiling behaviour, distance from the task, and finally electrodermal activity. Results suggest an overall user preference and higher engagement rates with the helpful robot in the frontal position. We discuss how behaviours and position of the robot relative to a user may affect user engagement and collaboration, in particular when the robot aims to provide help via socio-emotional bonding.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background research
    • Task and social engagement
    • Proxemics and positions in a framework of socio-emotional learning
    • Affect recognition
  • System description
  • Methodology
    • Participants
    • Scenario and robot behaviours
      • Helpful, Bonding-oriented, and Instructive
      • Neutral and partially instructive
    • Experimental setup
    • Procedure
    • Data collection
    • Data analysis
      • Cameras and video processing
      • Electrodermal activity analysis
      • Gaze estimation procedure
    • Hypotheses
  • Results
    • Electrodermal activity
    • Gaze behaviour
    • Distance from the sensor
    • Smile estimation
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (50)
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