The influence of subjects' personality traits on personal spatial zones in a human-robot interaction experiment

Abstract

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.

Evaluation of Passing Distance for Social Robots

“…However, high individual differences exist and the number of subjects involved in the study is not completely sufficient to get enough statistics to fully support the hypothesis. An influence of subjects' personality on individual proxemics preferences has been observed (Walters et al [12], Gockley and Mataric [13]) that will require further investigation. In addition there were considerable variations in the subjects' walking speeds and trajectories in the user study trials that influenced the robot behavior and consequently the results, as it will be explained later on.…”

Nonverbal Immediacy as a Characterisation of Social Behaviour for Human–Robot Interaction

“…Only about 60% of people conform to the same proxemic social norms with robots as they do with people [117]. That being said, compliance effects have been seen in educational interactions between children and robots at a distance of about 2 feet (60cm), although this hasn't been compared against a control with closer or further distances [67].…”

“…If more compliance is required, then a closer distance should be sought. Further research is required to decide what is to be considered 'too close' in specific scenarios, with humans of certain ages and certain robot sizes/designs; work such as [95,117] provides a strong starting point in this direction. …”

Sollten Assistenzroboter eine „Persönlichkeit“ haben?

“…Praktisch alle Tests fanden bisher in kontrollierter Umgebung [10,20,22,23] und nicht über längere Zeit in der häusli-chen Umgebung der Nutzer statt; hier ist das unlängst abgeschlossene HOBBIT …”