Emotion specific body movements: Studying humans to augment robots' bodily expressions

Abstract

Robots are starting to share our social space and will continue to do so in the future. These interactive devices have the capability of facilitating various interaction modalities which could go beyond voice and screen based interactions. When developing interaction technologies, theories such as psychobiological and media compensation suggest to replicate natural ways of human interactions such as face to face. As a result, it is vital to study how people interpret robot's physical appearance and actions. According to previous studies, designing acceptable humanoid robots is far more challenging than designing robots with less human qualities. This paper emphasizes the importance of human non-verbal communication in emotional interactions and analyzes how people use full body expression to communicate basic emotions, in particular happiness, surprise, and anger. Furthermore, this paper presents a list of emotion specific movement behaviors that can be used and applied to better design forms and movements for both humanoid or non-humanoid robots.