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The iCat as a Natural Interaction Partner

Playing Go Fish with a Robot
  • Koen Hindriks
  • Mark A. Neerincx
  • Mirek Vink
Conference paper
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 7068)

Abstract

To be able to develop robots that naturally interact with humans it is important to gain a better understanding of the factors that shape this interaction. Although many aspects have already been studied in depth, few studies have been performed on the effect that socio-cognitive abilities may have on this interaction. We have developed a robot that shows intentional or proactive behavior and that can be used to conduct research on interaction that is shaped by cognitive abilities. We have used the iCat robot platform to perform experiments with children to test various hypotheses on perceived effects of socio-cognitive abilities. Two different versions were developed: a socio-cognitive iCat robot that behaves socially and takes the mood of the child into account, and an ego-reactive iCat robot that does not do so. These two robots were evaluated and compared with each other in a scenario where the robot plays the card game Go Fish with a child. Results indicate that children are more positive about the interaction with the socio-cognitive iCat than with the ego-reactive iCat.

Keywords

Facial Expression Emotion Expression Game Play Social Robot Proactive Behavior 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Koen Hindriks
    • 1
  • Mark A. Neerincx
    • 1
  • Mirek Vink
    • 1
  1. 1.Delft University of TechnologyThe Netherlands

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