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Using Expectancy Violations Theory to Understand Robot Touch Interpretation

Published: 01 April 2020 Publication History

Abstract

As robots are increasingly placed in direct interaction and often times in physical contact with people, understanding how touch by a robot influences interactions has become an important topic in HRI. Although prior research in HRI has shown robotic touch to elicit both positive and negative reactions, it remains an open question when and why touch is perceived as positive or negative. Here we apply expectancy violations theory (EVT) to shed light onto this question. We present an online study with N=142 participants that investigates the impact of context (touch after error vs. touch after no error) and robot appearance (social/animated face vs. non-social/blank screen) in shaping the perception of a robot's touch. We found that robot-initiated touch from a non-social robot was rated more positively after an error compared to ratings of the non-social robot touch after no error. Open-ended responses showed that people attach a wide array of meanings to the robot's touch, highlighting the importance of additional cues that are needed to ensure that people understand the intention of the touch.

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  • (2024)RoSI: A Model for Predicting Robot Social InfluenceACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/364151513:2(1-22)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2024
  • (2023)Human Factors Considerations for Quantifiable Human States in Physical Human–Robot Interaction: A Literature ReviewSensors10.3390/s2317738123:17(7381)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2023
  • (2023)Not Only WEIRD but “Uncanny”? A Systematic Review of Diversity in Human–Robot Interaction ResearchInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-023-00968-415:11(1841-1870)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2023
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    HRI '20: Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
    March 2020
    702 pages
    ISBN:9781450370578
    DOI:10.1145/3371382
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all 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 third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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    Published: 01 April 2020

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    Author Tags

    1. expectancy violations theory
    2. human robot interaction
    3. social touch

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    View all
    • (2024)RoSI: A Model for Predicting Robot Social InfluenceACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/364151513:2(1-22)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2024
    • (2023)Human Factors Considerations for Quantifiable Human States in Physical Human–Robot Interaction: A Literature ReviewSensors10.3390/s2317738123:17(7381)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2023
    • (2023)Not Only WEIRD but “Uncanny”? A Systematic Review of Diversity in Human–Robot Interaction ResearchInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-023-00968-415:11(1841-1870)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2023
    • (2022)Seeing is not Feeling the Touch from a Robot *2022 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900788(1562-1569)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2022
    • (2022)Physical Touch from a Robot Caregiver: Examining Factors that Shape Patient Experience2022 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN53752.2022.9900549(1578-1585)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2022
    • (2021)Interactive Vignettes: Enabling Large-Scale Interactive HRI Research2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515376(1289-1296)Online publication date: 8-Aug-2021

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