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Gaze Motion and Subjective Workload Assessment While Performing a Task Walking Hand in Hand with a Mobile Robot

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Abstract

When a person uses a single modality to obtain information from multiple sources, the modality experiences resource competition, affecting perception. To avoid such human resource conflicts, we investigated whether a person could multitask efficiently by using tactile perception instead of visual perception to recognize the robot in a scenario where the robot leads the person. A wheeled mobile robot that we developed was used for the investigation. Each participant’s gaze was measured using a wearable eye-tracker to analyze the allocation of visual resources. As a subtask, participants were given a one-back calculation task for numbers placed on the wall of the experimental environment. The workload of the participants on the subtask was evaluated using the NASA task load index. The experimental results showed that the participants looked at the surroundings longer when walking hand in hand with the robot than when walking alongside it. Conversely, there was no significant difference in the subjective evaluation of mental workload between the two conditions. This study provides new insights into how hand-holding navigation by a robot affects human gaze behavior and mental workload, and represents a new form of utilization of physical interaction by service robots.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the duration of the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (JST ERATO; Grant No. JPMJER1401).

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Author notes

  1. Yoshihiro Nakata

    Present address: Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo, Japan

  2. Yutaka Nakamura

    Present address: RIKEN Information R &D and Strategy Headquarters, RIKEN, 2-2-2 Hikaridai Seika-cho, Sorakugun, Kyoto, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan

    Naoki Ise, Yoshihiro Nakata, Yutaka Nakamura & Hiroshi Ishiguro

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  1. Naoki Ise
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  2. Yoshihiro Nakata
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Correspondence to Yoshihiro Nakata.

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Ise, N., Nakata, Y., Nakamura, Y. et al. Gaze Motion and Subjective Workload Assessment While Performing a Task Walking Hand in Hand with a Mobile Robot. Int J of Soc Robotics 14, 1875–1882 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-022-00919-5

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