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The attribution of human-like characteristics onto humanoid robots has become a common practice in Human-Robot Interaction by designers and users alike. Robot gendering, the attribution of gender onto a robotic platform via voice, name, physique, or other features is a prevalent technique used to increase aspects of user acceptance of robots. One important factor relating to acceptance is user trust. As robots continue to integrate themselves into common societal roles, it will be critical to evaluate user trust in the robot's ability to perform its job. This paper examines the relationship among occupational gender-roles, user trust and gendered design features of humanoid robots. Results from the study indicate that there was no significant difference in the perception of trust in the robot's competency when considering the gender of the robot. This expands the findings found in prior efforts that suggest performance-based factors have larger influences on user trust than the robot's gender characteristics. In fact, our study suggests that perceived occupational competency is a better predictor for human trust than robot gender or participant gender. As such, gendering in robot design should be considered critically in the context of the application by designers. Such precautions would reduce the potential for robotic technologies to perpetuate societal gender stereotypes.
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Factors Influencing The Human Preferred Interaction Distance
Nonverbal interactions are a key component of human communication. Since robots have become significant by trying to get close to human beings, it is important that they follow social rules governing the use of space. Prior research has conceptualized personal space as physical zones which are based on static distances. This work examined how preferred interaction distance can change given different interaction scenarios. We conducted a user study using three different robot heights. We also examined the difference in preferred interaction distance when a robot approaches a human and, conversely, when a human approaches a robot. Factors included in quantitative analysis are the participants' gender, robot's height, and method of approach. Subjective measures included human comfort and perceived safety. The results obtained through this study shows that robot height, participant gender and method of approach were significant factors influencing measured proxemic zones and accordingly participant comfort. Subjective data showed that experiment respondents regarded robots in a more favorable light following their participation in this study. Furthermore, the NAO was perceived most positively by respondents according to various metrics and the PR2 Tall, most negatively.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1719027
- PAR ID:
- 10188820
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Introduction As mobile robots proliferate in communities, designers must consider the impacts these systems have on the users, onlookers, and places they encounter. It becomes increasingly necessary to study situations where humans and robots coexist in common spaces, even if they are not directly interacting. This dataset presents a multidisciplinary approach to study human-robot encounters in an indoor apartment-like setting between participants and two mobile robots. Participants take questionnaires, wear sensors for physiological measures, and take part in a focus group after experiments finish. This dataset contains raw time series data from sensors and robots, and qualitative results from focus groups. The data can be used to analyze measures of human physiological response to varied encounter conditions, and to gain insights into human preferences and comfort during community encounters with mobile robots. Dataset Contents A dictionary of terms found in the dataset can be found in the "Data-Dictionary.pdf" Synchronized XDF files from every trial with raw data from electrodermal activity (EDA), electrocardiography (ECG), photoplethysmography (PPG) and seismocardiography (SCG). These synchronized files also contain robot pose data and microphone data. Results from analysis of two important features found from heart rate variability (HRV) and EDA. Specifically, HRV_CMSEn and nsEDRfreq is computed for each participant over each trial. These results also include Robot Confidence, which is a classification score representing the confidence that the 80 physiological features considered originate from a subject in a robot encounter. The higher the score, the higher the confidence A vectormap of the environment used during testing ("AHG_vectormap.txt") and a csv with locations of participant seating within the map ("Participant-Seating-Coordinates.csv"). 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Results from pre-experiment and between-trial questionnaires Copies of both questionnaires and the semi-structured focus group protocol. Human Subjects This dataset contain de-identified information for 24 total subjects over 13 experiment sessions. The population for the study is the students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas at Austin. Of the 24 participants, 18 are students and 6 are staff at the university. Ages range from 19-48 and there are 10 males and 14 females who participated. Published data has been de-identified in coordination with the university Internal Review Board. All participants signed informed consent to participate in the study and for the distribution of this data. Access Restrictions Transcripts from focus groups are not published due to privacy concerns. Videos including participants are de-identified with overlays on videos. All other data is labeled only by participant ID, which is not associated with any identifying characteristics. Experiment Design Robots This study considers indoor encounters with two quadruped mobile robots. Namely, the Boston Dynamics Spot and Unitree Go1. These mobile robots are capable of everyday movement tasks like inspection, search or mapping which may be common tasks for autonomous agents in university communities. The study focus on perceived safety of bystanders under encounters with these relevant platforms. Control Conditions and Experiment Session Layout We control three variables in this study: Participant seating social (together in the living room) v. isolated (one in living room, other in small room) Robots Together v. Separate Robot Navigation v. Search Behavior A visual representation of the three control variables are shown on the left in (a)-(d) including the robot behaviors and participant seating locations, shown as X's. Blue represent social seating and yellow represent isolated seating. (a) shows the single robot navigation path. (b) is the two robot navigation paths. 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After experiments and sensor removal, participants take part in a focus group. Synchronized Data Acquisition Data is synchronized from physiological sensors, environment microphones and the robots using the architecture shown. These raw xdf files are named using the following file naming convention: Trials where participants sit together in the living room [Session number]-[trial number]-social-[robots together or separate]-[search or navigation behavior].xdf Trials where participants are isolated [Session number]-[trial number]-isolated-[subject ID living room]-[subject ID small room]-[robots together or separate]-[search or navigation behavior].xdf Qualitative Data Qualitative data is obtained from focus groups with participants after experiments. Typically, two participants take part however two sessions only included one participant. The semi-structured focus group protocol can be found in the dataset. Two different research methods are applied to focus group transcripts. Note: the full transcripts are not provided for privacy concerns. First, we performed a qualitative content analysis using deductive codes found from an existing model of perceived safety during HRI (Akalin et al. 2023). The quantitative results from this analysis are reported as frequencies of references to the various factors of perceived safety. The codebook describing these factors is included in the dataset. Second, an inductive thematic analysis was performed on the data to identify emergent themes. The resulting themes and associated quotes taken from focus groups are also included. Data Organization Data is organized in separate folders, namely: animation-videos anonymized-session-videos focus-group-results questionnaire-responses research-materials signal-analysis-results synchronized-xdf-data Data Quality Statement In limited trials, participant EDA or ECG signals or robot pose information may be missing due to connectivity issues during data acquisition. 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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN46459.2019.8956404
