Expressing individuality through teleoperated android: a case study with children

When utilizing robots as communication interface medium, the appearance of the robots, and the atmosphere or sense of presence they express will be one of the key issues in their design. Just like each person holds his/her own individual impressions they give when having a conversation with others, it might be effective for robots to hold a suitable sense of individuality, in order to effectively communicate with humans. In this paper, we report our investigation on the key elements for representing personal presence, which we define as the sense of being with a certain individual, and eventually implement them into robots. A case study is reported in which children performed daily conversational tasks with a geminoid, a teleoperated android robot that resembles a living individual. Different responses to the geminoid and the original person are examined, especially concentrating on the case where the target child was the daughter of the geminoid source. Results showed that children gradually became adapted to conversation with the geminoid, but the operator's personal presence was not completely represented. Further research topics on the adaptation process to androids and on seeking for the key elements on personal presence are discussed.