Emotion Appropriateness in Human–Drone Interaction

As robotic agents become increasingly pervasive in our lives, recent works have shown promising results on the use of emotions on social drones. However, further research is needed to determine the appropriateness of these emotions in various contexts. We here investigate the appropriateness of seven drone emotional states. In a series of six workshops (\(N{=}30\)) consisting of both individual and group activities, we studied emotion appropriateness for six drone metaphors across the two most popular and radically different domains for Human–Drone Interaction namely: Emergency and Entertainment. Within diverse situations of interactions, participants were able to identify the appropriateness of each emotion. Our results describe how each emotion was found both appropriate and inappropriate depending on context. We provide insights into unique opportunities generated by the perceived emotion appropriateness, depending on different roles of drone emotions in interactions with people. We conclude with design considerations for future social robotic agents, including the importance of using a broad range of emotions, the use of a neutral expression, the temporality of emotions, and novel applications to interaction design. This work contributes to the understanding of the inner workings of emotion appropriateness in drones, providing researchers with a starting point for future work on social flying robots.