Being familiar with the robot: The familiar a key concept in HRI

摘要

Most of the research conducted in HRI, particularly the ones interested in social and affective robotics, refer to a few generally-admitted expressions such as "socially adapted" interaction, "social acceptance", "human-like presence' and "natural' human-robot communication. Humans and intelligent machines are expected to share more of their environment, be it public or domestic, and interact in a way that is satisfying for humans. Although frequently used, these expressions refer in reality to complex concepts difficult to precisely define. Furthermore, the understanding of such concepts is exposed to interpersonal [1,4,5] and intercultural variations [6]. The way a "socially adapted" interaction builds up and the way social acceptance occurs are difficult to comprehend in a human-human interaction, as what might be acceptable or satisfying for one can be differently perceived by another. Few social experiences happen without experiencing some ambiguity or ambivalence, especially in a first encounter. When it comes to HRI, questions of social adaptation, acceptance and of "natural" interaction seem more crucial since the difference between humans and robots is fundamental and ontological. The quality of such an interaction depends strongly on the robot: not only its appearance, but also its abilities, features and autonomy. It depends also on the humans’ perception of the robot and their readiness to adapt to it, thus taking its abilities, limitations into account and compensating for them for the interaction to happen [7]. We use the notion of the familiar and possibly extend it to a conceptual one. "The familiar" is a notion that is familiar to almost anyone and numerous reviews use the words "familiar", "familiarity" or "to familiarize with" when working on social acceptance and socially adapted robot behavior. Nevertheless, "the familiar" is a notion that lacks definition and precision and only rare studies tackle it directly. The present paper consists of a preliminary study involving humanities and robotics. It explores the association between social acceptance / adaptation and the quality and intensity of the familiar experienced by a human interacting with a humanoid.