Designing a receptionist robot: Effect of voice and appearance on anthropomorphism

G. Trovato, J. G. Ramos, H. Azevedo, A. Moroni, S. Magossi, H. Ishii, R. Simmons, A. Takanishi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Robots are possible candidates for performing tasks as helpers in activities of daily living in the future: working as a receptionist is one possible employment. However, the way the receptionist robot should appear, sound and behave needs to be investigated carefully, in order to design a robot which is accepted and perceived in a positive way by common users. This paper describes a study on anthropomorphism of a receptionist robot made for Brazilian people depending on the appearance and on the voice of the receptionist. This experiment was preceded by a preliminary survey about expectation of people regarding receptionists. The main experiment consisted in having Brazilian people interacting with a conversational agent and with a humanoid robot through a video conference. The two receptionists are not only different in physical appearance, but in the sound of the voice, too, which can be either human-like or robotic sound. The two receptionists gave indications to the participants to reach rooms where they could evaluate the receptionists through questionnaires concerning anthropomorphism and uncanniness among other concepts. The results gathered from both experiments provide useful hints to design a receptionist robot.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRO-MAN 2015 - 24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Symposium Digest
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages235-240
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781467367042
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015 Nov 20
Event24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2015 - Kobe, Japan
Duration: 2015 Aug 312015 Sept 4

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
Volume2015-November

Other

Other24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2015
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityKobe
Period15/8/3115/9/4

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

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