research-article

Embodied Mediation in Group Ideation – A Gestural Robot Can Facilitate Consensus-Building

Authors:

Thomas H. Weisswange,

Marc HassenzahlAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

Pages 2611 - 2632

https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3660696

Published: 01 July 2024 Publication History

Abstract

This paper explores how a gesture-based robot influences human-human interaction in group ideation. The robot was mounted on a whiteboard and responded with six different gestures (e.g., nodding, following speakers with gaze) to specific situations. We coded the participants’ interactions from videos and gathered their experience through post-session interviews. The most frequently invoked robot behavior was following the speaker with gaze. As a result, participants felt socio-emotionally supported and responded by moving the ideation ahead (individual level) and consensus-building (group level). In fact, the groups with the robot showed more consensus-building than the two reference groups without the robot. Participants had different views on the role of the robot in the group, such as active outsider, supportive group member, or assistant. The latter tried to use the robot as decision-support. All in all, to include a robot to mediate human groups seems a promising future application domain.

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Cited By

Heimann Saadon NMegidish BErel HJohal WLemaignan SBrščić DVázquez MCharisi V(2025)Scammed By Robots: Can Deception by Two Simple Non-Humanoid Robots Shape General Attitudes toward Robots?Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.5555/3721488.3721601(929-938)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721601
Gillet SThompson SLeite IVázquez MJohal WLemaignan SBrščić DVázquez MCharisi V(2025)Templates and Graph Neural Networks for Social Robots Interacting in Small Groups of Varying SizesProceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.5555/3721488.3721547(458-467)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721547

Index Terms

Embodied Mediation in Group Ideation – A Gestural Robot Can Facilitate Consensus-Building
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Interaction design
    1. Empirical studies in interaction design

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cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference

July 2024

3616 pages

ISBN:9798400705830

DOI:10.1145/3643834

Editors:
Anna Vallgårda
IT University of Copenhagen
,
Li Jönsson
Malmö University
,
Jonas Fritsch
IT University of Copenhagen
,
Sarah Fdili Alaoui
LISN-Université Paris Saclay
,
Christopher A. Le Dantec
Northeastern University

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Published: 01 July 2024

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Cited By

Heimann Saadon NMegidish BErel HJohal WLemaignan SBrščić DVázquez MCharisi V(2025)Scammed By Robots: Can Deception by Two Simple Non-Humanoid Robots Shape General Attitudes toward Robots?Proceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.5555/3721488.3721601(929-938)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721601
Gillet SThompson SLeite IVázquez MJohal WLemaignan SBrščić DVázquez MCharisi V(2025)Templates and Graph Neural Networks for Social Robots Interacting in Small Groups of Varying SizesProceedings of the 2025 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.5555/3721488.3721547(458-467)Online publication date: 4-Mar-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3721488.3721547

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