Attention Sharing Handling Through Projection Capability Within Human–Robot Collaboration

The link between situation awareness (SA) and the distribution of human attention, has been explored within a human robot collaboration framework. According to Endsley (1995), SA is divided into three levels: perception, comprehension and projection. It is involved in the process of making decisions and carrying out actions in a dynamic environment. This work investigates three hypotheses. First, that the ability to project a robot’s future actions improves performance in a collaborative task. Second, that the more participants are involved in tasks in a collaborative environment, the better their SA will be. Finally, that the use of a robot’s non-verbal communication motions attracts a participant’s attention more promptly than if the robot remains motionless. A within-participants study has been designed to investigate our three hypotheses. Participants were asked to perform a collaborative task with a robot. It required them to assist the robot at different moments while they were engaged in a distracting task that was catching their attention (tower of Hanoi puzzle). These moments could either be anticipated and taken into account in the human decision-making and action loop or not. Lastly, the robot could either use non-verbal communication gestures to draw human attention or not. The results have demonstrated the significance of considering the human capability to project a robot next actions in their own personal attention management. Moreover, the subjective measures showed no difference in the assessment of SA, in contrast to the objective measures, which are in line with our second hypothesis. Finally, it seems that standing stationary can be considered a gesture of non-verbal communication. In the present work, robot waiting was more salient in capturing human attention when the robot remained motionless rather than making a signaling motion.