Nodding responses by collective proxy robots for enhancing social telepresence

Abstract

It is expected that the social presence of a distant person can be well conveyed in telecommunication using a robot as a proxy of that person. This paper proposes a novel form of robotic telecommunication, which consists not only of a proxy robot but also an additional bystander robot that autonomously responds to the interlocutor in front of them. The second robot is expected to complement the responses of the proxy robot so that the interlocutor feels stronger social telepresence of the distant person. A psychological experiment using two small humanoid robots as proxy and bystander reveals a positive effect on conveying a stronger feeling of social telepresence of the distant person.