Blurring Autonomous and Teleoperated Produces the Feeling of Talking with a Robot ’ s Operator

It could be considered that the essential difference between teleoperated and autonomous humanoid robots is the presence or absence of a remote operator. It has remained unclear how the user who is talking with a robot judges this difference. The purpose of this study is to produce the sense of talking with a remote operator when talking with an autonomous humanoid robot by finding the user’s judgment mechanism. We conducted experiments in which subjects talked with autonomous and teleoperated robots. As a result, we found that the presence/absence of a remote operator is tended to be judged by the user’s “beliefs” that he/she had been interacting with a remote operator through the robot. The gap of quality between the prior talking and the subsequent talking with an autonomous robot decreased a presence of remote operator. In conclusion, experiencing talking with an autonomous robot under the guise of a remote operator blurred the gap and effectively produced the presence of remote operator when later talking with the autonomous robot.

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