The Effect of Emotions and Social Behavior on Performance in a Collaborative Serious Game Between Humans and Autonomous Robots

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate performance in a collaborative human-robot interaction on a shared serious game task. Furthermore, the effect of elicited emotions and perceived social behavior categories on players' performance will be investigated. The participants collaboratively played a turn-taking version of the Tower of Hanoi serious game, together with the human and robot collaborators. The elicited emotions were analyzed in regards to the arousal and valence variables, computed from the Geneva Emotion Wheel questionnaire. Moreover, the perceived social behavior categories were obtained from analyzing and grouping replies to the Interactive Experiences and Trust and Respect questionnaires. It was found that the results did not show a statistically significant difference in participants' performance between the human or robot collaborators. Moreover, all of the collaborators elicited similar emotions, where the human collaborator was perceived as more credible and socially present than the robot one. It is suggested that using robot collaborators might be as efficient as using human ones, in the context of serious game collaborative tasks.

Robotic Versus Human Coaches for Active Aging: An Automated Social Presence Perspective

“…Using the argument that humans tend to treat non-human actors/systems as social beings [36,60] and the definition of automated social presence [72], we investigate whether SARs, which display human-like social behavior and communicative skills [10], evoke feelings of social presence in humans. Furthermore, this study extends previous research [30,43] by involving socially dexterous robots that are capa- ble of engaging in a dialog, gazing, and responding to social cues. Thus, we hypothesize:…”

“…Recognition performance was better when the participant initiated the pointing behavior than when the collaborator did so, but it did not matter if that collaborator was a human or a robot. In a turn-based variant of the Tower of Hanoi experiment, conducted with a human or robot collaborator [44], participants performed significantly better with a collaborator than when playing individually, but again, there were no significant differences between the human and robot collaborator conditions. Because the collaborator always made the best move, the lack of performance differences could be because the game was too simple.…”

“…Because the collaborator always made the best move, the lack of performance differences could be because the game was too simple. Although these studies suggest that participants benefit equally from collaborating with other humans or robots, one contribution [44] assigns an advantage to humans, in terms of perceived social presence and perceived credibility. These designs are replicable and controlled, and they rely on participant-collaborator interactions.…”

The Role of Frustration in Human–Robot Interaction – What Is Needed for a Successful Collaboration?

“…Humans have specific expectations regarding the details of the interaction with a robotic system based on, e.g., the appearance of the robot system, the way of conducting the task with the system often relating to the similarity to human–human interaction (HHI), like the way of communication (verbal and non-verbal) and social behavior toward the interaction partner and social norms ( Compagna et al, 2016 ; Beer et al, 2017 ; Jerčić et al, 2018 ). Humans use HHI mechanisms, like proxemic behavior, interpretation of the other’s intention, the way of communication, and social, physical, behavioral cues, to perceive robots as autonomous social agents, as socially present human employees ( Fiore et al, 2013 ).…”

Impacts of Human Robot Proxemics on Human Concentration-Training Games with Humanoid Robots

“…Robots with appropriately proxemic behaviors might obtain human acceptance well, contributing to their seamless integration into various applications [ 20 ]. Jerčić and Lindley suggested that serious games which are carefully designed to take into consideration the elicited physiological arousal might witness better decision-making performance and more positive valence using nonhumanoid-robot partners instead of human ones [ 21 ]. Liu showed that embodied nonhumanoid robots are as engaging as humans, eliciting physiological arousal in their human partners [ 22 ].…”