Subjective Evaluation of Seal Robot: Paro -Tabulation and Analysis of Questionnaire Results

Abstract

Recent advances in robotics have been applied to automation in industrial manufacturing, with the primary purpose of optimizing practical systems in terms of such objective measures as accuracy, speed, and cost. This paper describes research on mental commit robot that seeks a different direction that is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The main goal of this research is to explore a new area in robotics, with an emphasis on human-robot interaction. In the previous research, we categorized robots into four categories in terms of appearance. Then, we introduced a cat robot and a seal robot, and evaluated them by interviewing many people. The results showed that physical interaction improved subjective evaluation. Moreover, a priori knowledge of a subject has much influence into subjective interpretation and evaluation of mental commit robot. In this paper, 785 subjects evaluated the seal robot, Paro by questionnaires in an exhibition. This paper reports the results of statistical analysis of evaluation data.