Human-human-robot interaction: robotic object’s responsive gestures improve interpersonal evaluation in human interaction.
Object’s responsive gestures improve interpersonal evaluation in human interaction. The field of human-robot interaction typically studies the direct interaction between humans and robots. A much less studied domain is the robot’s influence on human-human interaction. We present a study measuring the effects of a non-humanoid robotic object on the way people evaluate each other, regardless of their perception of the robot.
In a controlled study with 60 participants (30 pairs), the robotic object was presented as a side-participant during face-to-face conversation between two people in one of three conditions: ‘Responsive to Speaker’, ‘Responsive to Addressee’, or ‘Non-responsive’ (baseline). We analyzed participants’ perceptions of each other by measuring interpersonal evaluation, mutual liking, and number of mutual smiles.
Results reveal that both responsive conditions had a positive influence on participants’ perception of each other, with a clear difference in the social role participants attributed to the robot in each condition. The two responsive conditions led to a significantly higher interpersonal evaluation of the human conversation partner, suggesting that a responsive robot can positively influence the quality of human-human interaction.