User's Subjective Interpretation of Bodily Movements as Gestural Commands to Robot Companions

Statistics show that domestic service robots for household chores, entertainment, or other social purposes will become a common scene in our future life. However, many of the human–robot interactions still behave and feel like robots belong in laboratory or factory, and are not well-suited toward the wide variety of home users. Researchers have consequently called for better interaction design of robot companions to engage users in a more socially meaningful style. In order to cope with the challenge of HRI, understanding how people interpret their own gestures will aid design of effective HRI. This study explored how users subjectively assessed their bodily movements in terms of gestural command in HRI. Literature survey, analysis of current related intelligent products, and in-depth interview with experts were adopted to identify the feasible gesture samples and commands used in nowaday robot-related products. An experiment was conducted to ask participants to view and experience each gesture sample, then make their subjective assessments of each sample in reference to a set of commands by a three-point scale. The results obtained are discussed in terms of implied guidelines for designing a natural and intuitive gestural interaction for companion robots and other intellectual appliances targeting non-expert users.