Effects of Observing Eye Contact between a Robot and Another Person
One of the common requirements for a communication robot is to be accepted by humans. Previous work has examined the effects of nonverbal factors on people’s perceptions of robots for such a purpose, but always with a focus on dyadic human–robot interaction; in real human society, however, triadic interaction also plays an important role and should be considered. This paper explores a potential merit offered by the latter form of interaction; specifically, how one form of nonverbal interaction occurring between a robot and humans, eye contact, can be utilized to make the robot appear more acceptable to humans. Experiments are conducted with groups of two humans and an android. One of the humans, the “subject,” is asked to communicate with a second person, the “confederate,” who knows the purpose of the experiment; the confederate’s role is to gaze in such a way that the subject either observes or does not observe eye contact between the confederate and the android. A post-interaction questionnaire reveals that subjects’ impressions toward the robot are influenced by eye contact between the confederate and the robot. Finally, the consistency of the experimental results is discussed in terms of Heider’s balance theory, and future extensions of this research are proposed.