The pleasure of receiving a head massage from a robot

Tactile interaction is at the heart of human-robot relationships. The physical presence of the robot is what distinguishes human-robot interaction from human-virtual agent interaction. Although first attempts for tactile human-robot interaction have been made, robots are still far inferior to the abilities of humans in providing tactile experiences. This study investigates if a head massage given by others is more pleasurable than a massage given oneself and if a simple robot is significantly worse in giving a head massage. Furthermore we investigate if the physical experience with a robot changes the participants´ attitudes towards robots. We ran a within-participants experiment with 18 subjects. The results show that receiving a massage by a human masseur is significantly more enjoyable than receiving it by a robot or by oneself. However, the participants displayed significantly more facial expressions of happiness in the robot condition. The participants did not significantly change their attitudes towards robots due their experience with the robot. We conclude that a robotic massage is a promising field for human robot interaction for further investigation.