Gaze based robot control: The communicative approach

We propose a novel way of robotic device control with communicative eye movements that could possibly help to solve the problem of false activations during the gaze control, known as the Midas touch problem. The proposed approach can be considered as explicitly based on communication between a human operator and a robot. Specifically, we employed gaze patterns that are characteristic for “joint attention” type of communication between two persons. “Joint attention” gaze patterns are automatized and able to convey information about object location even under a high cognitive load. Therefore, we assumed that they may make robot control with gaze more stable. In a study with 28 healthy participants who were naive to this approach most of them easily acquired robot control with “joint attention” gaze patterns. The study did not reveal higher preference for communicative type of control, possibly because the participants did not practice before the tests. We discuss potential benefits of the new approach that can be tested in future studies.