Engagement During Dialogues with Robots

This paper reports on our research on developing the ability for robots to engage with humans in a collaborative conversation. Engagement is the process by which two (or more) participants establish, maintain and end their perceived connection during interactions they jointly undertake. Many of these interactions are dialogues and we focus on dialogues in which the robot is a host to the human in a physical environment. The paper reports on human-human engagement and its appliction to a robot that collaborates with a human on a demonstration of equipment. AAAI Spring Symposium Dialogical Robots This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprofit educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. All