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Synchronicity Trumps Mischief in Rhythmic Human-Robot Social-Physical Interaction

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Robotics Research

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics ((SPAR,volume 10))

Abstract

Hand-clapping games and other forms of rhythmic social-physical interaction might help foster human-robot teamwork, but the design of such interactions has scarcely been explored. We leveraged our prior work to enable the Rethink Robotics Baxter Research Robot to competently play one-handed tempo-matching hand-clapping games with a human user. To understand how such a robot’s capabilities and behaviors affect user perception, we created four versions of this interaction: the hand clapping could be initiated by either the robot or the human, and the non-initiating partner could be either cooperative, yielding synchronous motion, or mischievously uncooperative. Twenty adults tested two clapping tempos in each of these four interaction modes in a random order, rating every trial on standardized scales. The study results showed that having the robot initiate the interaction gave it a more dominant perceived personality. Despite previous results on the intrigue of misbehaving robots, we found that moving synchronously with the robot almost always made the interaction more enjoyable, less mentally taxing, less physically demanding, and lower effort for users than asynchronous interactions caused by robot or human mischief. Taken together, our results indicate that cooperative rhythmic social-physical interaction has the potential to strengthen human-robot partnerships.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Haptics Group, GRASP Lab, MEAM Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Naomi T. Fitter

  2. Haptic Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

    Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

  3. Haptics Group, GRASP Lab, MEAM and CIS Departments, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Authors
  1. Naomi T. Fitter
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  2. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Naomi T. Fitter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Nancy M. Amato

  2. Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Greg Hager

  3. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Shawna Thomas

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Miguel Torres-Torriti

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Fitter, N.T., Kuchenbecker, K.J. (2020). Synchronicity Trumps Mischief in Rhythmic Human-Robot Social-Physical Interaction. In: Amato, N., Hager, G., Thomas, S., Torres-Torriti, M. (eds) Robotics Research. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28619-4_24

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