Eight Lessons Learned about Non-verbal Interactions through Robot Theater

摘要

Robot Theater is a fairly new arena for researching Human Robot In-teraction, however, in surveying research already conducted, we have identified eight lessons from Robot Theater that inform the design of social robots today. As an interdisciplinary field, we include examples spanning robotics research-ers, acting theorists, cognitive neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists and dramaturgy literature. Lessons learned include (1) the importance of intentio-nality in action; (2)(3)(4) the relationship between embodiment, gesture, and emotional expression; (5) the bipolar sociability categorization between ma-chine and agent; (6) the power of interaction partners to shape robot attribu-tions; (7) the role of audience acknowledgement and feedback; (8) the power of humor to enhance interaction. Robotics has had a long history with the field of entertainment; even the word 'robot' comes from the 1921 Czech play 'R.U.R.' — we look forward to rigorous and continued research and cross-pollination be-tween these domains.