Gradual Rhythm Change of a Drumming Robot Enhances the Pseudosense of Leading in Human–Robot Interactions

Abstract

In order to achieve symbiosis between humans and social robots, it is not enough to simply design a robot with excellent functionality, but it is necessary to give humans a friendly impression of the robot. Rhythmic synchronization is the foundation of social interaction and unity, and it is expected that research on synchronization between humans and robot will contribute to the design theory of robot that can build intimate relationships with humans. Specifically, the sense of leading a rhythm evokes a pleasant emotion. If a communication robot is behaviorally synchronized with humans, a strong sense of unity with the robot could occur in keeping with their sense of leading. However, in rhythmic interactions, having the sense of leading the rhythm often differs from the actual rhythm leading. We conducted three kinds of experiments to examine whether a pseudosense of leading occurred in human-robot or human-human drumming interactions. At the experiment 1, we used an interaction task of human-robot drumming to examine whether participants experienced a strong sense of leading when interacting with a robot drumming with gradual rhythm fluctuations and whether the sense of leading the rhythm induced a positive impression of the robot. As a result, we found that a pseudosense of leading the rhythm and the pleasant emotion of drumming occurred even from the artificial robot’s rhythm, notably when the rhythm of the robot changed gradually. At the experiment 2, we also showed that the pseudosense of leading was not likely to occur in the drumming between humans. Finally, at the experiment 3, we found that the pseudosense of leading would induce anthropomorphic impressions of the robots. These findings may contribute to designing interactive robots’ rhythmic behavior to realize symbiosis between humans and robots.