research-article

Soliloquising Social Robot in a Hotel Room

Authors:

Junya Nakanishi,

Itaru Kuramoto,

Yuichiro Yoshikawa,

Hiroshi IshiguroAuthors Info & Claims

OzCHI '19: Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction

Pages 21 - 29

https://doi.org/10.1145/3369457.3370913

Published: 10 January 2020 Publication History

Abstract

This study examines the possible services a social robot can provide in a hotel room. This area of research falls under the relatively unexplored domain of social robot services. This paper proposes and tests the proactive services rendered by a soliloquising social robot that has three core functions: responding to a customer's request, soliloquising about the hotel service, and proactively expressing goodwill (e.g. greetings and farewells), according to the context. We expect that, through its proactive interaction (in this case, soliloquising and expressing goodwill), a soliloquising social robot can become an essential room companion for customers. Rather than being a mere tool, the soliloquising robot can relieve a customer's feeling of loneliness and provide him or her some interpersonal warmth. However, the proactive social robot may appear to be intrusive. Thus, a field experiment was conducted at a hotel on the expectations and risks associated with using such a robot. The results reveal that although social robots can make potential room companions in hotels, it is necessary to resolve a few issues to enable them gain wider acceptance.

References

[1]

David A Aaker, Douglas M Stayman, and Michael R Hagerty. 1986. Warmth in advertising: Measurement, impact, and sequence effects. Journal of Consumer Research 12, 4 (1986), 365--381.

[2]

Ahmad Azmi M Ariffin and Atefeh Maghzi. 2012. A preliminary study on customer expectations of hotel hospitality: Influences of personal and hotel factors. International Journal of Hospitality Management 31, 1 (2012), 191--198.

[3]

Marjorie A Bayes. 1972. Behavioral cues of interpersonal warmth. Journal of Consulting and clinical Psychology 39, 2 (1972), 333.

[4]

Kelly Caine, Selma Šabanovic, and Mary Carter. 2012. The effect of monitoring by cameras and robots on the privacy enhancing behaviors of older adults. In Proceedings of the seventh annual ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-Robot Interaction. ACM, 343--350.

Digital Library

[5]

Zhe Cao, Tomas Simon, Shih-En Wei, and Yaser Sheikh. 2017. Realtime multi-person 2d pose estimation using part affinity fields. In CVPR, Vol. 1. 7.

[6]

Michael Jae-Yoon Chung and Maya Cakmak. 2018. "How was your stay?": Exploring the Use of Robots for Gathering Customer Feedback in the Hospitality Industry. In 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN). IEEE, 947--954.

[7]

Yu Chung-En. 2018. Humanlike robot and human staff in service: Age and gender differences in perceiving smiling behaviors. In Industrial Technology and Management (ICITM), 2018 7th International Conference on. IEEE, 99--103.

[8]

Amy JC Cuddy, Susan T Fiske, and Peter Glick. 2007. The BIAS map: behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes. Journal of personality and social psychology 92, 4 (2007), 631.

[9]

Jenny de Jong Gierveld and Betty Havens. 2004. Cross-national comparisons of social isolation and loneliness: introduction and overview. Canadian Journal on Aging/La Revue canadienne du vieillissement 23, 2 (2004), 109--113.

[10]

Francisco Erivaldo Fernandes, Guanci Yang, Ha Manh Do, and Weihua Sheng. 2016. Detection of privacy-sensitive situations for social robots in smart homes. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE). IEEE, 727--732.

Digital Library

[11]

Susan T Fiske, Amy JC Cuddy, and Peter Glick. 2007. Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in cognitive sciences 11, 2 (2007), 77--83.

[12]

Horst-Michael Gross, Steffen Mueller, Christof Schroeter, Michael Volkhardt, Andrea Scheidig, Klaus Debes, Katja Richter, and Nicola Doering. 2015. Robot companion for domestic health assistance: Implementation, test and case study under everyday conditions in private apartments. In 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE, 5992--5999.

Digital Library

[13]

Stanislav Hristov Ivanov, Craig Webster, and Katerina Berezina. 2017. Adoption of robots and service automation by tourism and hospitality companies. 27/28 (2017), 1501--1517.

[14]

Younbo Jung and Kwan Min Lee. 2004. Effects of physical embodiment on social presence of social robots. Proceedings of PRESENCE (2004), 80--87.

[15]

Hanan Saad Kattara, Dina Weheba, and Osman Ahmed El-Said. 2008. The impact of employee behaviour on customers' service quality perceptions and overall satisfaction. Tourism and Hospitality Research 8, 4 (2008), 309--323.

[16]

Min Kyung Lee, Karen P Tang, Jodi Forlizzi, and Sara Kiesler. 2011. Understanding users' perception of privacy in human-robot interaction. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Human-robot interaction. ACM, 181--182.

Digital Library

[17]

Jos Lemmink and Jan Mattsson. 1998. Warmth during non-productive retail encounters: the hidden side of productivity. International Journal of Research in Marketing 15, 5 (1998), 505--517.

[18]

Jos Lemmink and Jan Mattsson. 2002. Employee behavior, feelings of warmth and customer perception in service encounters. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 30, 1 (2002), 18--33.

[19]

Alison E Lloyd and Sherriff TK Luk. 2011. Interaction behaviors leading to comfort in the service encounter. Journal of Services marketing 25, 3 (2011), 176--189.

[20]

Junya Nakanishi, Itaru Kuramoto, Jun Baba, Ogawa Kohei, Yuichiro Yoshikawa, and Hiroshi Ishiguro. 2018. Can a Humanoid Robot Engage in Heartwarming Interaction Service at a Hotel?. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction. ACM, 45--53.

Digital Library

[21]

Diego Nieto, Alexis Quesada-Arencibia, Carmelo R García, and Roberto Moreno-Díaz. 2014. A social robot in a tourist environment. In International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence. Springer, 21--24.

[22]

Hirotaka Osawa, Arisa Ema, Hiromitsu Hattori, Naonori Akiya, Nobotsugu Kanzaki, Akinori Kubo, Tora Koyama, and Ryutaro Ichise. 2017. Analysis of robot hotel: Reconstruction of works with robots. In 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN). IEEE, 219--223.

Digital Library

[23]

Yadong Pan, Haruka Okada, Toshiaki Uchiyama, and Kenji Suzuki. 2013. Direct and indirect social robot interactions in a hotel public space. In 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO). IEEE, 1881-1886.

[24]

Yadong Pan, Haruka Okada, Toshiaki Uchiyama, and Kenji Suzuki. 2015. On the reaction to robot's speech in a hotel public space. International Journal of Social Robotics 7, 5 (2015), 911--920.

[25]

Roberto Pinillos, Samuel Marcos, Raul Feliz, Eduardo Zalama, and Jaime Gómez-García-Bermejo. 2016. Long-term assessment of a service robot in a hotel environment. Robotics and Autonomous Systems 79 (2016), 40--57.

Digital Library

[26]

Aung Pyae and Tapani N Joelsson. 2018. Investigating the usability and user experiences of voice user interface: a case of Google home smart speaker. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct. ACM, 127--131.

Digital Library

[27]

Hayley Robinson, Bruce MacDonald, Ngaire Kerse, and Elizabeth Broadbent. 2013. The psychosocial effects of a companion robot: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 14, 9 (2013), 661--667.

[28]

Eduardo Rodriguez-Lizundia, Samuel Marcos, Eduardo Zalama, Jaime Gómez-García-Bermejo, and Alfonso Gordaliza. 2015. A bellboy robot: Study of the effects of robot behaviour on user engagement and comfort. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 82 (2015), 83--95.

Digital Library

[29]

Carolyn Shaw Brown and Beth Sulzer-Azaroff. 1994. An assessment of the relationship between customer satisfaction and service friendliness. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 14, 2 (1994), 55--76.

[30]

Toshiyuki Shiwa, Takayuki Kanda, Michita Imai, Hiroshi Ishiguro, and Norihiro Hagita. 2009. How quickly should a communication robot respond? Delaying strategies and habituation effects. International Journal of Social Robotics 1, 2 (2009), 141--155.

[31]

Kazuaki Tanaka, Naomi Yamashita, Hideyuki Nakanishi, and Hiroshi Ishiguro. 2016. Teleoperated or autonomous?: How to produce a robot operator's pseudo presence in HRI. In The Eleventh ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. IEEE Press, 133--140.

Digital Library

[32]

Gabriele Trovato, Massimiliano Zecca, Salvatore Sessa, Lorenzo Jamone, Jaap Ham, Kenji Hashimoto, and Atsuo Takanishi. 2013. Cross-cultural study on human-robot greeting interaction: acceptance and discomfort by Egyptians and Japanese. Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics 4, 2 (2013), 83--93.

[33]

Vincent Wing Sun Tung and Norman Au. 2018. Exploring customer experiences with robotics in hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 30, 7 (2018), 2680--2697.

[34]

Jonathan Vitale, Meg Tonkin, Sarita Herse, Suman Ojha, Jesse Clark, Mary-Anne Williams, Xun Wang, and William Judge. 2018. Be more transparent and users will like you: A robot privacy and user experience design experiment. In Proceedings of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. ACM, 379--387.

Digital Library

Cited By

Nakanishi JHazama TBaba JSong SYoshikawa YIshiguro H(2025)Exploring Interactive Services by Hotel Room Social Robotsホテルの客室におけるロボットによる対話サービスの在り方の探索Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan10.7210/jrsj.43.9843:1(98-107)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.7210/jrsj.43.98
Husain RTripathi S(2024)Shadows across cultures: exploring the dark side of anthropomorphized agentsJournal of Consumer Marketing10.1108/JCM-04-2024-6781Online publication date: 29-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-04-2024-6781
Lein MDonnermann MSteinhaeusser SLugrin BCastellano GRiek LCakmak MLeite I(2023)Using a Social Robot as a Hotel Assessment ToolCompanion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3568294.3580054(117-121)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568294.3580054
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Soliloquising Social Robot in a Hotel Room
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
    1. Robotics
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

Recommendations

Can a Humanoid Robot Engage in Heartwarming Interaction Service at a Hotel?
HAI '18: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction

While more and more robots have been employed in the service industry, the impact of the human--robot social interaction on a heartwarming interaction service mostly remains an open question. For the purpose of exploring the possibility that a humanoid ...
Uses and gratifications of social networking sites for bridging and bonding social capital

Applying uses and gratifications theory (UGT) and social capital theory, our study examined users of four social networking sites (SNSs) (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat), and their influence on online bridging and bonding social capital. ...
Telenoid android robot as an embodied perceptual social regulation medium engaging natural human-humanoid interaction

The present paper aims to validate our research on human-humanoid interaction (HHI) using the minimalist humanoid robot Telenoid. We conducted the human-robot interaction test with 142 young people who had no prior interaction experience with this ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

OzCHI '19: Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction

December 2019

631 pages

ISBN:9781450376969

DOI:10.1145/3369457

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

In-Cooperation

HFESA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Inc.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 10 January 2020

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Conference

OZCHI'19

OZCHI'19: 31ST AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON HUMAN-COMPUTER-INTERACTION

December 2 - 5, 2019

WA, Fremantle, Australia

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

7
Total Citations
View Citations
331
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)32
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)6

Reflects downloads up to 03 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Nakanishi JHazama TBaba JSong SYoshikawa YIshiguro H(2025)Exploring Interactive Services by Hotel Room Social Robotsホテルの客室におけるロボットによる対話サービスの在り方の探索Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan10.7210/jrsj.43.9843:1(98-107)Online publication date: 2025
https://doi.org/10.7210/jrsj.43.98
Husain RTripathi S(2024)Shadows across cultures: exploring the dark side of anthropomorphized agentsJournal of Consumer Marketing10.1108/JCM-04-2024-6781Online publication date: 29-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-04-2024-6781
Lein MDonnermann MSteinhaeusser SLugrin BCastellano GRiek LCakmak MLeite I(2023)Using a Social Robot as a Hotel Assessment ToolCompanion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3568294.3580054(117-121)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568294.3580054
Hu YMin H(2023)The dark side of artificial intelligence in service: The “watching-eye” effect and privacy concernsInternational Journal of Hospitality Management10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103437110(103437)Online publication date: Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103437
Mahdi HAkgun SSaleh SDautenhahn K(2022)A survey on the design and evolution of social robots — Past, present and futureRobotics and Autonomous Systems10.1016/j.robot.2022.104193156:COnline publication date: 1-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.robot.2022.104193
Nakanishi JHazama TBaba JSong SYoshikawa YIshiguro H(2021)Exploring Possibilities of Social Robot’s Interactive Services in the Case of a Hotel Room2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515380(925-930)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515380
Nakanishi JBaba JKuramoto IOgawa KYoshikawa YIshiguro H(2020)Smart Speaker vs. Social Robot in a Case of Hotel Room2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)10.1109/IROS45743.2020.9341537(11391-11396)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/IROS45743.2020.9341537

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten