One of the most common cues in human relations is the reaction when someone approaches for a touch interaction. While the "before touch" distance has been investigated in daily life scenarios, it has not been studied for virtual environments. The measurements of a pre-touch distance in virtual reality can be applied to study social interactions especially for haptic interactions in virtual spaces where virtual agents interact autonomously with human participants. In the first stage of this study, we collected data to define a pre-touch distance when a virtual agent tries to touch the participant's face. On the basis of these results, we then classified participants into two groups based on preferred pre-touch distance: a "Near" group and a "Far" group. Next, we experimentally investigated the relationship between the participant's perception of an avatar's reaction to touch interaction and their preferred pre-touch distance. The results indicated that the participants felt friendliness to the agent who reacts with shorter pre-touch distance. We also found that the participant's pre-touch distance defined their preferences regarding the agent's behavior: those with a shorter pre-touch distance preferred agents with a closer interaction distance, and those with a longer pre-touch distance preferred agents with a longer interaction distance.
Although before-touch situations are essential to achieve natural touch interactions between people and robots, they receive less attention than after-touch situations. This study reports pre-touch reaction distance analysis results around touchable upper body parts, i.e., shoulders, elbows, and hands, based on human–human pre-touch interaction. We also analyzed the effects of gender, approach side, speed, and acclimation in modeling the pre-touch reaction distance, and found that the distance around the hands is smaller than the distance around the shoulders and elbows, and speed and acclimation affect the distance. On the other hand, gender and approach side do not significantly affect the pre-touch reaction distance. Finally, we implemented the results in a male-looking android and confirmed that it reacted toward pre-touch based on the obtained model.
BackgroundReaction behaviors by human-looking agents to nonverbal communication cues significantly affect how they are perceived as well as how they directly affect interactions. Some studies have evaluated such reactions toward several interactions, although few approached before-touch situations and how the agent’s reaction is perceived. Specifically, it has not been considered how pre-touch reactions impact the interaction, the influence of gaze behavior in a before-touch situation context and how it can condition the participant’s perception and preferences in the interaction. The present study investigated the factors that define pre-touch reactions in a humanoid avatar in a virtual reality environment and how they influence people’s perceptions of the avatars.MethodsWe performed two experiments to assess the differences between approaches from inside and outside the field of view (FoV) and implemented four different gaze behaviors: face-looking, hand-looking, face-then-hand looking and hand-then-face looking behaviors. We also evaluated the participants’ preferences based on the perceived human-likeness, naturalness, and likeability. In Experiment 1, we evaluated the number of steps in gaze behavior, the order of the gaze-steps and the gender; Experiment 2 evaluated the number and order of the gaze-steps.ResultsA two-step gaze behavior was perceived as more human and more natural from both inside and outside the field of view and that a face-first looking behavior when defining only a one-step gaze movement was preferable to hand-first looking behavior from inside the field of view. Regarding the location from where the approach was performed, our results show that a relatively complex gaze movement, including a face-looking behavior, is fundamental for improving the perceptions of agents in before-touch situations.DiscussionThe inclusion of gaze behavior as part of a possible touch interaction is helpful for developing more responsive avatars and gives another communication channel for increasing the immersion and enhance the experience in Virtual Reality environments, extending the frontiers of haptic interaction and complementing the already studied nonverbal communication cues.
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