  This paper presents some early work and future plans regarding how the
autonomous motions of a telepresence robot affect a person embodied in the
robot through a head-mounted display. We consider the preferences, comfort, and
the perceived naturalness of aspects of piecewise linear paths compared to the
same aspects on a smooth path. In a user study, thirty-six subjects (eighteen
females) watched panoramic videos of three different paths through a simulated
museum in virtual reality and responded to questionnaires regarding each path.
We found that comfort had a strong effect on path preference, and that the
subjective feeling of naturalness also had a strong effect on path preference,
even though people consider different things as natural. We describe a
categorization of the responses regarding the naturalness of the robot's motion
and provide a recommendation on how this can be applied more broadly. Although
immersive robotic telepresence is increasingly being used for remote education,
clinical care, and to assist people with disabilities or mobility
complications, the full potential of this technology is limited by issues
related to user experience. Our work addresses these shortcomings and will
enable the future personalization of telepresence experiences for the
improvement of overall remote communication and the enhancement of the feeling
of presence in a remote location.
