Emotion induction during human-robot interaction

Abstract

The aim of the presented study was to measure physiological correlates of emotions that are of particular interest in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Therefore, we did not focus on self-induced basic emotions but rather evoked states that might occur naturally in this context. Our video shows how such states (namely stress, boredom, surprise, and perplexity) were elicited during a joint construction task with an industrial robot (see figure 1). Participants were asked to build different LEGO objects, while the robot arm was passing the bricks with predetermined velocity. States of stress and boredom were generated by varying the handover interval from 3 seconds (stress) to 5 seconds (normal working condition) up to 35 seconds (boredom). Surprise was induced by passing an unexpected component. At the end of the experiment, we additionally wanted to know how people react if the robot seems to tease them by repeatedly changing the handover position.