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‘Give me a hug’: the effects of touch and autonomy on people's responses to embodied social agents
Author(s) -
Cramer Henriette,
Kemper Nicander,
Amin Alia,
Wielinga Bob,
Evers Vanessa
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
computer animation and virtual worlds
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.225
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1546-427X
pISSN - 1546-4261
DOI - 10.1002/cav.317
Subject(s) - closeness , proactivity , embodied cognition , robot , embodied agent , computer science , autonomy , human–computer interaction , subject (documents) , human–robot interaction , social robot , social relation , psychology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , mobile robot , robot control , world wide web , mathematical analysis , mathematics , political science , law
Abstract Embodied social agents are programmed to display human‐like social behaviour to increase intuitiveness of interacting with these agents. It is yet unclear what the differences in peoples' responses are to different types of agents' social behaviours. One example is touch. Despite robots' physical embodiment and increasing autonomy, the effect of communicative touch has been a mostly overlooked aspect of human‐robot interaction. This video‐based, 2 × 2 between‐subject survey experiment (N = 119) found that the combination of touch and proactivity influenced whether people saw the robot as machine‐like and dependable. Furthermore, participants' attitude toward robots in general was found to influence perceived closeness between a human and a robot. Results show that communicative touch could be considered a more appropriate behaviour for proactive agents rather than reactive agents. Also, people that are generally more positive towards robots find robots that interact by touch less machine‐like. These effects illustrate that careful consideration is necessary when incorporating social behaviours in agents' physical interaction design. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.