Impression Change on Nonverbal Non-Humanoid Robot by Interaction with Humanoid Robot

Abstract

Even if a robot is not designed with a specific impression, if there is a means that can add an impression later to the robot, it will be useful for social robot design, we considered. In particular, anthropomorphism seems to be an important impression of designing social interaction between humans and robots. In the movie, ”STAR WARS,” there is a non-humanoid robot, called R2-D2, which communicates mainly by sounds. A humanoid interpreter robot, called C-3PO, responds to the sound of R2-D2 with natural language and gesture. And the audience finds the personality in R2-D2 richer than the personality which is based on the information which R2-D2’s sounds have. It might be possible to change the impression of a non-humanoid robot emitting simple sounds by communication with a humanoid robot that speaks a natural language and make gestures. We conducted an impression evaluation experiment. In the condition where robots are interacting, the observer evaluated anthropomorphism of the nonhumanoid robot more than in the non-interacting condition. There were also some other impressions that have changed.