Title
Eliciting caregiving behavior in dyadic human-robot attachment-like interactions
Abstract
We present here the design and applications of an arousal-based model controlling the behavior of a Sony AIBO robot during the exploration of a novel environment: a children's play mat. When the robot experiences too many new perceptions, the increase of arousal triggers calls for attention towards its human caregiver. The caregiver can choose to either calm the robot down by providing it with comfort, or to leave the robot coping with the situation on its own. When the arousal of the robot has decreased, the robot moves on to further explore the play mat. We gathered results from two experiments using this arousal-driven control architecture. In the first setting, we show that such a robotic architecture allows the human caregiver to influence greatly the learning outcomes of the exploration episode, with some similarities to a primary caregiver during early childhood. In a second experiment, we tested how human adults behaved in a similar setup with two different robots: one “needy”, often demanding attention, and one more independent, requesting far less care or assistance. Our results show that human adults recognise each profile of the robot for what they have been designed, and behave accordingly to what would be expected, caring more for the needy robot than for the other. Additionally, the subjects exhibited a preference and more positive affect whilst interacting and rating the robot we designed as needy. This experiment leads us to the conclusion that our architecture and setup succeeded in eliciting positive and caregiving behavior from adults of different age groups and technological background. Finally, the consistency and reactivity of the robot during this dyadic interaction appeared crucial for the enjoyment and engagement of the human partner.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1145/2133366.2133369
TIIS
Keywords
Field
DocType
human partner,caregiving behavior,play mat,needy robot,dyadic human-robot attachment-like interaction,primary caregiver,different robot,human adult,robot move,sony aibo robot,arousal-driven control architecture,human caregiver,positive affect,psychology,age groups,developmental robotics,human robot interaction,emotions
Computer science,Coping (psychology),Developmental robotics,Cognitive psychology,AIBO,Artificial intelligence,Robot,Affect (psychology),Dyadic interaction,Perception,Human–robot interaction,Distributed computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
2
1
2160-6455
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.71
8
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Antoine Hiolle1806.72
Lola Cañamero232039.12
Marina Davila Ross3111.05
Kim A. Bard4824.44