Comparing Robot Embodiments for Social Human-Robot Interaction of a Health Coach Service

As robotics technologies are advancing at an ever increasing rate, various types of service robots have emerged in the market and focused on assisting people through social interaction. This study aims to investigate the effects of robotic platforms on users’ perception of a socially assistive robot, to better understand whether people respond differently to a physical robot versus its digital representation on screen. By applying the Wizard of Oz method, a three-condition experiment was conducted to compared participants' responses in a health coaching session with (a) a physical, humanoid robot coach, (b) its full size, 3D animated agent coach displayed on a 37inch TV screen, or (c) a much smaller animated agent coach on a mobile. The results showed that participants’ responses to the physical robot coach differed from their responses to its digital representations (agent coaches). In addition, the display device for an agent coach also affected participants’ subjective and behavioral responses to the health coach service. Participants appreciated more and disclosed more with the physical robot coach and the agent coach on TV, than with the agent coach on mobile device. In all subjective evaluations, the attitudes of the participants were most positive toward physical robots, except trust. Instead, the agent coach on the TV was the most trusted. To conclude the study, implications for robotic platforms in HRI were discussed.

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