Julia Fink

Anthropomorphism and human likeness in the design of robots and human-robot interaction

In this literature review we explain anthropomorphism and its role in the design of socially interactive robots and human-robot interaction. We illustrate the social phenomenon of anthropomorphism which describes peoples tendency to attribute lifelike qualities to objects and other non lifelike artifacts. We present theoretical backgrounds from social sciences, and integrate related work from robotics research, including results from experiments with social robots. We present different approaches for anthropomorphic and humanlike form in a robots design related to its physical shape, its behavior, and its interaction with humans. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of anthropomorphism in robotics, collects and reports relevant references, and gives an outlook on anthropomorphic human-robot interaction.

Which robot behavior can motivate children to tidy up their toys?: design and evaluation of "ranger"

We present the design approach and evaluation of our prototype called “Ranger”. Ranger is a robotic toy box that aims to motivate young children to tidy up their room. We evaluated Ranger in 14 families with 31 children (2-10 years) using the Wizard-of-Oz technique. This case study explores two different robot behaviors (proactive vs. reactive) and their impact on children’s interaction with the robot and the tidying behavior. The analysis of the video recorded scenarios shows that the proactive robot tended to encourage more playful and explorative behavior in children, whereas the reactive robot triggered more tidying behavior. Our findings hold implications for the design of interactive robots for children, and may also serve as an example of evaluating an early version of a prototype in a real-world setting. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4 [Information Systems Applications]: Miscellaneous; I.2.9 [Artificial Intelligence]: Robotics— Commercial robots and applications

The dynamics of anthropomorphism in robotics

Many robotics researchers tend to believe that anthropomorphism describes a set of human-like features of a robot (like shape, speech capabilities, facial expression). We refer to these characteristics as the anthropomorphic design of the robot [1]. Anthropomorphism, on the other hand, refers to the social phenomenon that emerges from the interaction between a robot and an user. According to Epley et al. [2], this includes for instance emotional states, motivations, intentions ascribed by the user to the robot.

You"re Doing It Wrong! Studying Unexpected Behaviors in Child-Robot Interaction

We present a study on the impact of unexpected robot behaviors on the perception of a robot by children and their subsequent engagement in a playful interaction based on a novel “domino” task. We propose an original analysis methodology which blends behavioral cues and reported phenomenological perceptions into a compound index.

Ranger, An Example of Integration of Robotics into the Home Ecosystem

This paper presents the concept and a case study of a robject, a robotic entity embedded in an everyday object. Robjects use the affordance of the original object to ensure an efficient interaction and a high acceptance. The example of the ranger robot shows how this approach can be applied to a domestic environment. We explore the integration of a robot (robject) into a family household, by regarding the home as a ecosystem , which consists of people, things, activities, and interactions. Our evaluation study of the ranger robot in families validates this holistic approach and shows the impact of this type of design in respect to the complexity of the robotic system.

Upgrade Your Robot Competition, Make a Festival! [Competitions]

Keywords: [mobots] ; educational robotics ; robots competitions ; NCCR Robotics Reference EPFL-ARTICLE-188462doi:10.1109/MRA.2013.2272203 Record created on 2013-09-12, modified on 2017-05-12

Design and evaluation of a graphical iPad application for arranging adaptive furniture

We present the design and evaluation of an iPad application that will be used to operate the modular robots “Roombots”. Roombots are the building blocks for adaptive pieces of furniture. The application allows a user to arrange adaptive furniture within a room. We conducted a user study with 24 participants to evaluate our approach and to freely explore peoples interaction. Data suggests that the ability to move with the tablet leads to a better precision of the furniture arrangement. No significant difference has been observed between using the application through a virtual representation of the room in contrast to an augmented reality environment, even if participants mentioned in a post-study questionnaire their preference for the augmented condition. Users described the interface as intuitive and easy to use.

Analysis of impact of an annual robotics festival

For four years a robotics festival has taken place at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland. As the number of visitors has rapidly grown from a few thousands to a dozen thousands, it gives an opportunity to investigate who is attending this event and which impact can be obtained in terms of education and motivation toward understanding science and technology. In the 2011 edition of the festival, a large survey was carried out, collecting data from 3423 visitors. The analysis of the collected data gives an idea about the profile of the people attending the event and the key factors impacting the acceptance of science and technology. Findings show that people of all ages and especially children and families have been attracted. More men than women attended the festival and visitors tended to have completed higher education. Overall, people appreciated that the event gave them the opportunity to discover new things about robotics and some teenagers got encouraged to learn more about it. We conclude by presenting our lessons learned and make suggestions to help others with organizing public robotic events.