Can Robotic Experimenters help improve HRI Experiments? An Experimental Study

To evaluate the design and skills of a robot or an algorithm for robotics, human-robot interaction user studies need to be performed. Classically, these studies are conducted by human experimenters, requiring considerable effort, and introducing variability and potential human error. In this paper, we investigate the use of robots in support of HRI experiments. Robots can perform repeated tasks accurately, thereby reducing human effort and improving validity through reduction of error and variability between participants. To assess the potential for robot led HRI experiments, we ran an HRI experiment with two participant groups, one led by a human experimenter and another led mostly by a robot experimenter.We show that the replacement of several repetitive experiment tasks through robots is not only possible but beneficial: Trials performed by the robot experimenter had fewer errors and were more fluent. There was no statistically significant difference in participants' perception w.r.t. cognitive load, comfortability, enjoyment, safety, trust and understandability between both groups. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comparison between robot-led and human-led HRI experiments. It suggests that using robot experimenters can be beneficial and should be considered.

Understandable Robots

Finally, the work will include an investigation of the contextual form of explanations. In this study, we will include a time-bounded scenario in which the different levels of understanding will be tested to enable us to evaluate suitable and comprehensible explanations. For this we have proposed different levels of understanding (LOU). A user study will be designed to compare different LOU for different contexts of interaction. A user study simultating a hospital environment will be investigated.

Exploratory evaluation of politeness in human-robot interaction

Aiming to explore the impact of politeness on Human robot interaction, this study tested varying levels of politeness in a human robot collaborative table setting task. Polite behaviour was designed based on the politeness rules of Lakoff. A graphical user interface was developed for the interaction with the robot offering three levels of politeness, and an experiment was conducted with 20 older adults and 30 engineering students. Results indicated that the quality of interaction was influenced by politeness as participants significantly preferred the polite mode of the robot. However, the older adults were less able to distinguish between the three politeness levels. Future studies should thus include pre experiment training to increase the familiarity of the older adults with robotic technology. These studies should also include other permutations of the politeness rules of Lakoff.