Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Benefits of Interactions with Physically Present Robots over Video-Displayed Agents

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper explores how a robot’s physical presence affects human judgments of the robot as a social partner. For this experiment, participants collaborated on simple book-moving tasks with a humanoid robot that was either physically present or displayed via a live video feed. Multiple tasks individually examined the following aspects of social interaction: greetings, cooperation, trust, and personal space. Participants readily greeted and cooperated with the robot whether present physically or in live video display. However, participants were more likely both to fulfill an unusual request and to afford greater personal space to the robot when it was physically present, than when it was shown on live video. The same was true when the live video displayed robot’s gestures were augmented with disambiguating 3-D information. Questionnaire data support these behavioral findings and also show that participants had an overall more positive interaction with the physically present robot.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bainbridge WA, Hart J, Kim ES, Scassellati B (2008) The effect of presence on human-robot interaction. In: ROMAN 2008: Proceedings of the 17th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication, Munich, Germany, pp 701–706

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Bickmore T, Cassell J (2001) Relational agents: a model and implementation of building user trust. In: CHI ’01: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, New York, pp 396–403

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Bickmore TW, Picard RW (2005) Establishing and maintaining long-term human-computer relationships. ACM Trans Comput-Hum Interact 12(2):293–327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Burgoon JK, Bonito JA, Bengtsson B, Cederberg C, Lundeberg M, Allspach L (2000) Interactivity in human-computer interaction: a study of credibility, understanding, and influence. Comput Hum Behav 16(6):553–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cassell J, Bickmore T, Billinghurst M, Campbell L, Chang K, Vilhjálmsson H, Yan H (1999) Embodiment in conversational interfaces: Rea. In: Proceedings of the CHI’99 conference. ACM Press, New York, pp 520–527

    Google Scholar 

  6. Goetz J, Kiesler S (2002) Cooperation with a robotic assistant. In: CHI ’02: CHI ’02 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems. ACM, New York, pp 578–579

    Google Scholar 

  7. Hall ET (1966) The Hidden Dimension, 1st edn. Doubleday, Garden City

    Google Scholar 

  8. Hayduk LA (1981) The shape of personal space: An experimental investigation. Can J Behav Sci 13(1):87–93

    Google Scholar 

  9. Jung Y, Lee KM (2004) Effects of physical embodiment on social presence of social robots. Spain, pp 80–87

  10. Kidd CD, Breazeal C (2004) Effect of a robot on user perceptions, vol 4, pp 3559–3564

  11. Lee KM (2004) Presence, explicated. Commun Theory 14:27–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Lombard M, Ditton T (1997) At the heart of it all: The concept of presence. J Comput Mediat Commun 3(2)

  13. Lombard M, Ditton TB, Crane D, Davis B, Gil-Egui G, Horvath K, Rossman J (2000) Measuring presence: A literature-based approach to the development of a standardized paper-and-pencil instrument. Netherlands

  14. Michel P, Gold K, Scassellati B (2004) Motion-based robotic self-recognition. In: Proceedings of 2004 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, Japan

    Google Scholar 

  15. Powers A, Kiesler S, Fussell S, Torrey C (2007) Comparing a computer agent with a humanoid robot. In: HRI ’07: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction. ACM, New York, pp 145–152

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Reeves B, Nass C (1996) The media equation: How people treat computers, video-displayed, and new media like real people and places. Center for the study of language and information

  17. Rehnmark F, Bluethmann W, Mehling J, Ambrose RO, Diftler M, Chu M, Necessary R (2005) Robonaut: The ‘short list’ of technology hurdles. Computer 38(1):28–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Shinozawa K, Naya F, Yamato J, Kogure K (2005) Differences in effect of robot and screen agent on human decision-making. Int J Hum-Comput Stud 62(2):267–279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Sidner C, Lee C, Kidd C, Lesh N, Rich C (2005) Explorations in engagement for humans and robots. Artif Intell 166(1–2):140–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Steinfeld A, Jenkins OC, Scassellati B (2009) The oz of wizard: simulating the human for interaction research. In: HRI ’09: Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE international conference on human robot interaction. ACM, New York, pp 101–108. doi:10.1145/1514095.1514115

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Sun G, Scassellati B (2004) Reaching through learned forward model. In: Proceedings of 2004 IEEE-RAS/RSJ international conference on humanoid robots, CA

    Google Scholar 

  22. Takayama L, Pantofaru C (2009) Influences on proxemic behaviors in human-robot interaction. In: Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems, pp 5495–5502

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Wainer J, Feil-Seifer DJ, Shell DA, Matarić MJ (2006) The role of physical embodiment in human-robot interaction. In: IEEE proceedings of the international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, Hatfield, UK, pp 117–122

    Google Scholar 

  24. Wainer J, Feil-Seifer D, Shell D, Mataric M (2007) Embodiment and human-robot interaction: A task-based perspective, pp 872–877

  25. Walters M, Dautenhahn K, te Boekhorst R, Koay KKL, Kaouri C, Woods S, Nehaniv C, Lee D, Werry I (2005) The influence of subjects’ personality traits on personal spatial zones in a human-robot interaction experiment. In: IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication. ROMAN 2005, pp 347–352

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Woods SN, Walters ML, Koay KL, Dautenhahn K (2006) Methodological issues in hri: A comparison of live and video-based methods in robot to human approach direction trials. In: Proc 15th IEEE int symp on robot and human interactive communication, ROMAN 2006, pp 51–58

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Yamato J, Brooks R, Shinozawa K, Naya F (2003) Human-robot dynamic social interaction. NTT Tech Rev 1(6):37–43

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Yale University, 51 Prospect St, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Wilma A. Bainbridge, Justin W. Hart, Elizabeth S. Kim & Brian Scassellati

Authors
  1. Wilma A. Bainbridge
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Justin W. Hart
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Elizabeth S. Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Brian Scassellati
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wilma A. Bainbridge.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bainbridge, W.A., Hart, J.W., Kim, E.S. et al. The Benefits of Interactions with Physically Present Robots over Video-Displayed Agents. Int J of Soc Robotics 3, 41–52 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-010-0082-7

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-010-0082-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation