Subtle Reaction and Response Time Effects in Human-Robot Touch Interaction

Abstract

This paper reports subtle reactions and response time effects in human-robot touch interaction with an android named ERICA whose has a human-like appearance. People usually prefer a quick response from interaction targets, regardless whether the targets are computer systems or robots. One famous guideline to design response timing is called the “two second rule,” which argues that a system should not take more than two seconds to respond to input. To investigate whether such a response time design is applicable to human-robot touch interactions, we investigated several response times when a robot is touched by people. We also implemented subtle reactions for a robot to being touched and investigated whether they increased the robot’s human-likeness. Our experimental results with 12 participants showed that the robot’s perceived human-likeness increased because it showed a subtle reaction to being touched. The results also showed that people would prefer quick responses to their touch interactions. In this study, zero seconds showed significantly higher preference than two seconds, but one second did not show significant differences with two seconds.