Screen feedback in human-robot interaction: How to enhance robot expressiveness

The feedback of a robot is a powerful means to establish smooth human-robot interaction (HRI). We report on a user study to assess the applicability of a screen in a human-robot game-playing scenario. The screen was deployed to compensate for expressive shortcomings of a social robot due to its mechanical limitations of non-movable facial features. The participants played Rock-Paper-Scissors with the robot for which we programmed the right hand to show gestures. Half of the participants received facial expressions via a screen during the game, whereas the other half did not get screen feedback. We annotated the video-recorded interactions and collected questionnaire and interview data to assess the applicability of the screen. With our data we could show noteworthy results: First, the robot which provided facial expressions was rated more intelligent. Second, the participants who had interacted with the robot showing facial expressions, rated the task as more attractive than participants who did not receive facial expressions from the robot. The fact that we could not detect a negative influence of the screen, underlines the applicability of a screen in an HRI game-playing scenario to display facial expressions and contribute to an enhanced interaction.