Evaluation of Expressive Motions based on the Framework of Laban Effort Features for Social Attributes of Robots*

Abstract

In today’s world, it is not uncommon to see robots adopted in various domains and environments. Robots take over several roles and tasks from manufacturing facilities to households and offices. It is crucial to measure people’s judgment of robots' social attributes since the findings can shape the future design for social robots. Using only a simple and mono-functional robotic vacuum cleaner, this paper investigates the impact of expressive motions on how people perceive the social attributes of the robot. The Laban Effort Features, a framework for movement analysis that emerged from dance, was modified to design expressive motions for a simple cleaning task. Participants were asked to rate the social attributes of the robot under several treatment conditions using a video-based online survey. The results indicated that velocity influenced people’s ratings of the robot’s warmth and competence, while path planning behavior influenced people’s ratings of the robot’s competence and discomfort. Limitations of this study include the kinematic constraints of the robot, potential issues with survey design, and technical constraints related to the open interface provided by the robot’s developer. The findings should be considered when incorporating expressive motions into domestic service robots operating in social settings.