Cory D. Kidd

Explorations in engagement for humans and robots

This paper explores the concept of engagement, the process by which individuals in an interaction start, maintain and end their perceived connection to one another. The paper reports on one aspect of engagement among human interactors--the effect of tracking faces during an interaction. It also describes the architecture of a robot that can participate in conversational, collaborative interactions with engagement gestures. Finally, the paper reports on findings of experiments with human participants who interacted with a robot when it either performed or did not perform engagement gestures. Results of the human-robot studies indicate that people become engaged with robots: they direct their attention to the robot more often in interactions where engagement gestures are present, and they find interactions more appropriate when engagement gestures are present than when they are not.

Where to look: a study of human-robot engagement

This paper reports on a study of human subjects with a robot designed to mimic human conversational gaze behavior in collaborative conversation. The robot and the human subject together performed a demonstration of an invention created at our laboratory; the demonstration lasted 3 to 3.5 minutes. We briefly discuss the robot architecture and then focus the paper on a study of the effects of the robot operating in two different conditions. We offer some conclusions based on the study about the importance of engagement for 3D IUIs. We will present video clips of the subject interactions with the robot at the conference.

Effect of a robot on user perceptions

Social robots are robots that help people as capable partners rather than as tools, are believed to be of greatest use for applications in entertainment, education, and healthcare because of their potential to be perceived as trusting, helpful, reliable, and engaging. This paper explores how the robots physical presence influences a persons perception of these characteristics. The first study reported here demonstrates the differences between a robot and an animated character in terms a persons engagement and perceptions of the robot and character. The second study shows that this difference is a result of the physical presence of the robot and that a persons reactions would be similar even if the robot is not physically collocated. Implications to the design of socially communicative and interactive robots are discussed.

A sociable robot to encourage social interaction among the elderly

In this paper, we present evidence that although current models for introduction of robotic companions stress individual encounters, a social community alternative is promising. This argument emerges from an experiment we conducted with a small interactive robot at two local nursing homes. Here we give a brief introduction to the robot and our experience at the homes. We compare the robot used to a semi-robotic toy whose use initially suggested to us the benefits of social community models in the presentation of robotics to the elderly. We find that even where individual encounters are significant, sensitivity to social dimensions improve the benefits of these encounters

Robots at home: Understanding long-term human-robot interaction

Human-robot interaction (HRI) is now well enough understood to allow us to build useful systems that can function outside of the laboratory. We are studying long-term interaction in natural user environments and describe the implementation of a robot designed to help individuals effect behavior change while dieting. Our robotic weight loss coach is compared to a standalone computer and a paper log in a controlled study. We describe the software model used to create successful long-term HRI. We summarize the experimental design, analysis, and results of our study, the first where a sociable robot interacts with a user to achieve behavior change. Results show that participants track their calorie consumption and exercise for nearly twice as long when using the robot than with the other methods and develop a closer relationship with the robot. Both are indicators of longer-term success at weight loss and maintenance and show the effectiveness of sociable robots for long-term HRI.

TUTELAGE AND COLLABORATION FOR HUMANOID ROBOTS

This paper presents an overview of our work towards building socially intelligent, cooperative humanoid robots that can work and learn in partnership with people. People understand each other in social terms, allowing them to engage others in a variety of complex social interactions including communication, social learning, and cooperation. We present our theoretical framework that is a novel combination of Joint Intention Theory and Situated Learning Theory and demonstrate how this framework can be applied to develop our sociable humanoid robot, Leonardo. We demonstrate the robots ability to learn quickly and effectively from natural human instruction using gesture and dialog, and then cooperate to perform a learned task jointly with a person. Such issues must be addressed to enable many new and exciting applications for robots that require them to play a long-term role in peoples daily lives.

Relational artifacts with children and elders: the complexities of cybercompanionship

In several studies over 5 years, our interdisciplinary research team introduced My Real Babies, Aibos and Paros into two nursing homes and into the school and home life of children.† By referring to these sociable robots as relational artifacts, we draw on the psychoanalytic tradition, which emphasizes the human meaning of the person–artifact connection. We report on the relationships children and seniors formed with the robots, focusing on: (1) how they talk about the robots in relation to themselves and others; and (2) how their ideas about the robots and interactions with them reflect other feelings. In doing so, we distinguish ‘robot as Rorschach’, which refers to how relationships with robots express other things about a persons life, and ‘robot as evocative object’, which refers to how robots provoke reflection on such issues as what is aliveness, what is special about being a person, and what is the role of thought and feeling in defining human uniqueness. In case studies we report on individual differences among robot users and sociological factors that affect their engagement. The results may inform the design of future relational artifacts, especially as robots find medical and therapeutic vocations. †This article includes words that are, or are asserted to be, proprietary terms or trade marks. Their inclusion does not imply that they have acquired for legal purposes a non-proprietary or general significance, nor is any other judgment implied concerning their legal status.

Working collaboratively with humanoid robots

This paper presents an overview of our work towards building humanoid robots that can work alongside people as cooperative teammates. We present our theoretical framework based on a novel combination of joint intention theory and collaborative discourse theory, and demonstrate how it can be applied to allow a human to work cooperatively with a humanoid robot on a joint task using speech, gesture, and expressive cues. Such issues must be addressed to enable many new and exciting applications for humanoid robots that require them to assist ordinary people in daily activities or to work as capable members of human-robot teams.

Sociable robot systems for real-world problems

Human-robot interaction research is maturing to the point where we can begin to build systems that interact with people in their daily lives and provide support for particular needs. We propose that sociable robot systems are systems that comprise a sociable robot, other technological devices, methods for interaction, and methods for relationship creation and maintenance. These systems can be designed as solutions to address particular needs such as health care or behavior change goals. We discuss the social support benefits of creating a relationship between a person and a robot and offer ideas for how this might be done. A system that is currently under development in our lab to help obese patients who have recently lost weight maintain their target weight is presented as an example of this kind of sociable robot system.

Designing a sociable robot system forweight maintenance

Human-robot interaction research is maturing to the point where we can build systems that interact with people in their daily lives and provide support for particular needs. We propose a sociable robot system to help people who are losing weight to better track their progress. We describe related work in sociable robotics and ubiquitous computing and define the term sociable robot systems as systems that comprise a sociable robot, other technological devices, methods for interaction, and methods for relationship creation and maintenance. The system currently being implemented is described as well as the plans for testing the system in a real-world setting.