The study presented in this paper explored people's perceptions and attitudes towards the idea of a future robot companion for the home. A human-centred approach was adopted using questionnaires and human-robot interaction trials to derive data from 28 adults. Results indicated that a large proportion of participants were in favour of a robot companion and saw the potential role as being an assistant, machine or servant. Few wanted a robot companion to be a friend. Household tasks were preferred to child/animal care tasks. Humanlike communication was desirable for a robot companion, whereas humanlike behaviour and appearance were less essential. Results are discussed in relation to future research directions for the development of robot companions.

In the present study we investigated humanrobot and robot-human approach distances. We found that subjects' personality profiles influence personal spatial zones in human-robot interaction experiments. We tested two hypotheses: First, we predicted that approach distances preferred by humans when interacting with a robot would be comparable to those preferred when humans interact socially with each other. Our experiments involving humans interacting with a mobile robot confirm this hypothesis. However, surprisingly, a large minority of subjects in the experiments took up positions which were significantly closer, suggesting that they were not treating the robot as a 'social entity'. We then tested the hypothesis that common personality factors exist which could be used to predict subjects' likely approach distance preferences. The subjects' personalities were assessed using several traits from the threefactor Eysenck personality model. Further analysis of the data identified four new factors, different from Eysenck's model, tentatively labeled "Proactiveness", "Social Reluctance", "Timidity" and "Nervousness". When testing for correlations between approach distances and personality data, "Proactiveness" correlates with social distance, i.e. subjects that score higher on this factor come less close to the robot. We discuss the potential suitability of personality factors to predict approach distances in human-robot interaction experiments.

This paper presents the results from two empirical exploratory studies of human-robot interaction in the context of an initial encounter with a robot of mechanistic appearance. The first study was carried out with groups of children, and the second with single adults. The analysis concentrates on the personal space zones and initial distances between robot and humans, the context of the encounters and the human's perception of the robot as a social being. We discuss the results of these observations and analyses, and also compare the child and adult data. The child groups showed a dominant response to prefer the 'social zone' distance, comparable to distances people adopt when talking to other humans. From the single adult studies a small majority preferred the 'personal zone', reserved for talking to friends. However, significant minorities deviate from this pattern. Implications for future work are discussed.

-A relatively unexplored question for human-robot social interaction is whether a robot's personality should match that of the human user, or be different in the sense that humans do not want the robot to be like them. In this study, 28 adults interacted individually with a non-humanoid robot that demonstrated two robot behaviour styles (Socially Interactive, Socially Ignorant) in a simulated living room situation. Questionnaires assessed the extent to which adult ratings of their own personality traits were similar or different to the two robot behaviours. Results revealed that overall subjects did not view their own personality as similar to either of the two robot behaviour styles. Subjects viewed themselves as having stronger personality characteristics compared to the two robot behaviour styles. Important group differences were found, factors such as subject gender, age and technological experience were important in how subjects viewed their personality as being similar to the robot personality. esign implications for future studies are discussed.

Identifying links between human personality and attributed robot personality is a relatively new area of human-robot interaction. In this paper we report on an exploratory study that investigates human and robot personality traits as part of a human-robot interaction trial. The trials took place in a simulated living-room scenario involving 28 participants and a human-sized robot of mechanical appearance. Participants interacted with the robot in two task scenarios relevant to a 'robot in the home' context. It was found that participants' evaluations of their own personality traits are related to their evaluations of the robot's personality traits. The statistical analysis of questionnaire data yields several statistically significant results: (a) Participants do not tend to assign their personality traits to match the robots' , (b) For individual personality traits, participants rated themselves as having stronger personality characteristics compared to the robot, (c) Specific significant correlations were found between participants' and robot personality traits, and (d) Significant group differences for participant gender, age and technological background are highlighted. The results are discussed in light of developing personalized robot companions.