A Social Agent, or a Medium?: The Impact of Anthropomorphism of Telepresence Robot's Sound Interface on Perceived Copresence, Telepresence and Social Presence

Abstract

Robot's sound feedback can have either speech or non-speech interface. Since a telepresence robot (FURo-i Home) is a robot intended to be used in remote communication where conveying the presence of the communicators is essential, this study investigated the effect of anthropomorphic sound interface on perceived copresence, telepresence and social presence of the communicator. We executed a 2 (modality of sound interface: speech and non-speech audio) between-participants experiment. Participants felt more copresence from the interaction through the robot which had speech interface than non-speech interface. The results suggested that the robot's identity from its anthropomorphic features as a social agent would complement the presence of the counterpart which could have been reduced or distorted during a robot mediated communication.