Gaze-communicative behavior of stuffed-toy robot with joint attention and eye contact based on ambient gaze-tracking

Yonezawa, Tomoko; Yamazoe, Hirotake; Utsumi, Akira; Abe, Shinji

doi:10.1145/1322192.1322218

Cited by 75 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Yoshikawa et al [45] demonstrated that robot's responsive gaze, either following or avoiding its human partner's gaze direction, can give people a stronger feeling of being looked at than non-responsive gaze cases. Yonezawa et al [44] found that a stuffed-toy robot's joint attention gaze and eye contact with a human partner elicited a favorable feeling towards the robot. Our work provides empirical evidence that carefully planned robot gaze cues can significantly affect participants' task performance and subjective experience during robot-to-human handovers.…”

Section: Robot Gaze In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Robot Head Gaze on Robot-to-Human Handovers

Zheng

Moon

Croft

et al. 2015

Int J of Soc Robotics

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In this paper, we investigate the use of a robot's gaze to improve the timing and subjective experience of faceto-face robot-to-human handovers. Based on observations of human gaze behaviors during face-to-face human-human handovers, we implement various gaze behaviors on a PR2 humanoid robot. We conducted two consecutive robot-tohuman handover studies. Results show that when the robot continually gazes at a projected handover position while handing over an object, the human receivers reach for the object significantly earlier than when the robot looks down, away from the handover location; further, when the robot continually gazes at the receiver's face instead of the handover position, the receivers reach for the object even earlier. When the robot-instead of continually gazing at a location-transitions its gaze from the handover position to the receivers' face, or vice versa, the receivers' reach time did not improve; however, the receivers perceive these gaze transitions to better communicate handover timing than continual gazes. Finally, the receivers perceive the robot to be more likeable and anthropomorphic when it looks at their B Minhua Zheng face than when it does not. Findings from our studies indicate that robot's use of gaze can help improve both fluency and subjective experience of the robot-to-human handover interactions.

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Section: Robot Gaze In Hrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Robot Head Gaze on Robot-to-Human Handovers

Zheng

Moon

Croft

et al. 2015

Int J of Soc Robotics

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show abstract

“…Interestingly, in HRI, Yonezawa et al showed that the eye contact with a stuffed-toy robot, induced a favorable evaluation of the robot [26]. In another study, in which humans were teaching a robot, it seemed more intentional when it displayed eye contact compared to a random gaze [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Mutual Gaze in Human-Robot Interaction

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Mutual gaze is a key element of human development, and constitutes an important factor in human interactions. In this study, we examined -through analysis of subjective reports-the influence of an online eyecontact of a humanoid robot on humans' reception of the robot. To this end, we manipulated the robot gaze, i.e., mutual (social) gaze and neutral (non-social) gaze, throughout an experiment involving letter identification. Our results suggest that people are sensitive to the mutual gaze of an artificial agent, they feel more engaged with the robot when a mutual gaze is established, and eye-contact supports attributing human-like characteristics to the robot. These findings are relevant both to the human-robot interaction (HRI) research -enhancing social behavior of robots, and also for cognitive neuroscience -studying mechanisms of social cognition in relatively realistic social interactive scenarios. Keywords: Social Human-Robot interaction, iCub, Mutual Gaze IntroductionOne of the major research topics in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research is designing robots that react to human needs, coordinate with humans by means of human-like actions, appear intentional, and behave like social agents. These features would allow for a better social attunement with humans and would facilitate their smooth integration into society. Besides design of robots for optimal adaptation in everyday environments, developments in HRI could benefit from investigation of social cognition in humans. More specifically, empirical findings in social neuroscience indicate the need for investigating social cognition during involvement in truly real-time interactive scenarios rather than through mere observation of social stimuli on a screen [1][2][3]. In order to examine mechanisms of social cognition in various naturalistic settings, humanoid robots consist an ideal trade-off between ecological validity and experimental control, for a review see [4]. In terms of ecological validity, humanoid robots increase perception of social presence due to their embodiment [5]. They can induce both low-level social cognition mechanisms (perceptual and motor processes) [6-8] and higher-order mechanisms, such as mentalizing [9]. In terms of experimental control, precise behavioral parameters of the robot can be manipulated, and subsequently, influence of these parameters on the social cognition mechanisms of humans can be examined [10]. Although lowlevel social processes are typically evoked when robots are used as interaction partners [6][7][8], they can be modulated by human-likeness of the robot, as people are sensitive to subtle human-like features in robot's behavior [11][12]. Therefore, increasing human-likeness of humanoid robots, should allow for more natural HRI on the one hand, and for understanding social cognition in more natural interactive scenarios on the other. One of the most crucial cues of typically human communication is mutual gaze or eye contact; a reciprocal exchange of gaze between two people. The effect of eye cont...

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“…These features are applicable for estimating user attention and targets of interest in daily life using user gaze information and offering proper information/contents for each user [12]. Moreover, the features enable us to provide a gaze-reactive robot for evoking communication for people who have lost the desire to communicate due to dementia or trauma [15]. In the "Gazecoppet" system ( Figure 13), a stuffed-toy robot reacts to gazecommunicative interaction by expressing its gazing behaviors as if looking at an object.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the "Gazecoppet" system ( Figure 13), a stuffed-toy robot reacts to gazecommunicative interaction by expressing its gazing behaviors as if looking at an object. Corresponding to the gazetracking results, the robot reacts in the following two ways: i) joint attention, which means "looking at the same object" expressed by facing the direction when the user looks around the robot; and ii) eye-contact reaction by voices and gestures when the user gazes at the robot [15]. The system decides which reaction the robot should manifest and synthesizes its motion and/or voice corresponding to the reaction type.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%