Tuning of behavioral characteristics in an ethologically inspired robot behavior model based on verbal communication

To sustain effective and long-term human-robot communications, a robot behavior model based on dog behavior in human-dog relationships is proposed. The model includes behavioral factors that produce different behavioral characteristics. We conducted experiments to evaluate robot-user impressions of robot behaviors when presented with different characteristics using a simulator. Our findings showed that the robot-users had the impressions that we expected based on the factors selected. As in an earlier model, the behavioral characteristics were assigned fixed numeric values; therefore, the characteristics in that earlier model could not be changed by users. This paper, however, proposes a method that enables users to modify or “tune” the behavioral characteristics based on verbal communication.