Many researchers use Wizard of Oz (WoZ) as an experimental technique, but there are methodological concerns over its use, and no comprehensive criteria on how to best employ it. We systematically review 54 WoZ experiments published in the primary HRI publication venues from 2001-2011. Using criteria proposed by Fraser and Gilbert (1991), Green et al. (2004), Steinfeld et al. (2009), and Kelley (1984), we analyzed how researchers conducted HRI WoZ experiments. Researchers mainly used WoZ for verbal (72.2%) and non-verbal (48.1%) processing. Most constrained wizard production (90.7%), but few constrained wizard recognition (11%). Few reported measuring wizard error (3.7%), and few reported pre-experiment wizard training (5.4%). Few reported using WoZ in an iterative manner (24.1%). Based on these results we propose new reporting guidelines to aid future research.

A long-standing question within the robotics community is about the degree of human-likeness robots ought to have when interacting with humans. We explore an unexamined aspect of this problem: how people empathize with robots along the anthropomorphic spectrum. We conducted an experiment that measured how people empathized with robots shown to be experiencing mistreatment by humans. Our results indicate that people empathize more strongly with more human-looking robots and less with mechanicallooking robots.

Healthcare robotics can provide health and wellness support to billions of people.

No abstract

People use imitation to encourage each other during conversation. We have conducted an experiment to investigate how imitation by a robot affect people's perceptions of their conversation with it. The robot operated in one of three ways: full head gesture mimicking, partial head gesture mimicking (nodding), and non-mimicking (blinking). Participants rated how satisfied they were with the interaction. We hypothesized that participants in the full head gesture condition will rate their interaction the most positively, followed by the partial and non-mimicking conditions. We also performed gesture analysis to see if any differences existed between groups, and did find that men made significantly more gestures than women while interacting with the robot. Finally, we interviewed participants to try to ascertain additional insight into their feelings of rapport with the robot, which revealed a number of valuable insights.