Evaluating Virtual Emotional Expression Systems for Human Robot Interaction in Rehabilitation Domain

Abstract

As rehabilitation robots are increasingly serving to improve the quality of life for physically disabled people in clinical environments, the concept of emotional expressiveness in robots becomes increasingly important. The human perception of robot's emotional expressions plays a crucial role in human robot interaction. Virtual expression systems outperform hardware systems in realizing human like expressions due the limitations in hardware actuators and advances in animation tools. This paper evaluates the human perception of robot's emotional expressions with two different virtual emotional expression systems: one where the robot exhibits emotions through icon faced expressions and in other the robot exhibits emotions through human faced expressions in clinical environment. A rehabilitation HRI research robot Robbie is introduced and the results of the comparative study on human perception of robot's emotional expressions with two different systems are discussed.

The Future of Robotic Design

“…DiSalvo and Gemperle (2003) suggested that the level of robotic anthropomorphism alters how individuals interact with robots. These influences include component elements, such as surface features (e.g., beveled edges, number of appendages; Sims, Chin, Yordon, et al, 2005), and facial features and expressions (Lum et al, 2007; Mohan, Calderon, Zhou, & Yue, 2008; Sims, Chin, Sushil, et al, 2005). Goetz, Kiesler, and Powers (2003) demonstrated that social cues are embodied in appearance and therefore influence how individuals perceive a robot (positively or negatively) as well as their willingness to comply with any instructions issued therefrom.…”

Classification of Robot Form: Factors Predicting Perceived Trustworthiness

“…Similarly, the degree to which a human will interact with a robot has been shown to be somewhat based on the robot's appearance (Li, Rau, & Li, 2010), as is its likeability (Goetz, Kiesler, & Powers, 2003). In other research, component-specific design preferences have been examined in regards to a robot's physical form such as preferred aesthetic features and appendages (Sims et al, 2005), facial features and expressions (Mohan, Calderon, Zhou, & Yue, 2008), and levels of anthropomorphism (DiSalvo & Gemperle, 2003). While there have been a number of studies exploring robot form, very few of these relate to trust (see Tsui, Desai, and Yanco, 2010 for one of the few studies examining anthropomorphism and human-robot trust).…”

Understanding the ideal cooperative characteristic between two humans

“…Many other developed and developing economies with rapidly growing elderly population are witnessing increasing case studies and developments in rehabilitation robotics targeted at reducing stress and depression in elderly (3) .…”