Evaluating the Robot Personality and Verbal Behavior of Domestic Robots Using Video-Based Studies

Robots are increasingly being used in domestic environments and should be able to interact with inexperienced users. Human-human interaction and human-computer interaction research findings are relevant, but often limited because robots are different from both humans and computers. Therefore, new human-robot interaction (HRI) research methods can inform the design of robots suitable for inexperienced users. A video-based HRI (VHRI) methodology was here used to carry out a multi-national HRI user study for the prototype domestic robot BIRON (BIelefeld RObot companioN). Previously, the VHRI methodology was used in constrained HRI situations, while in this study HRIs involved a series of events as part of a 'home-tour' scenario. Thus, the present work is the first study of this methodology in extended HRI contexts with a multi-national approach. Participants watched videos of the robot interacting with a human actor and rated two robot behaviors (Extrovert and Introvert). Participants' perceptions and ratings of the robot's behaviors differed with regard to both verbal interactions and person following by the robot. The study also confirms that the VHRI methodology provides a valuable means to obtain early user feedback, even before fully working prototypes are available. This can usefully guide the future design work on robots, and associated verbal and non-verbal behaviors. (C) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2011