A challenge in using fully autonomous robots in human-robot interaction (HRI) is to design behavior that is engaging enough to encourage voluntary, long-term interaction, yet robust to the perturbations induced by human interaction. Here we evaluate if an intrinsically motivated, physical robot can address this challenge. We use  predictive information maximization  as an intrinsic motivation, as simulated experiments showed that this leads to playful, exploratory behavior that is robust to changes in the robot's morphology and environment. To the authors' knowledge there are no previous HRI studies that evaluate the effect of intrinsically motivated behavior in robots on the human perception of those robots. We present a game-like study design, which allows us to focus on the interplay between the robot and the human participant. In contrast to a study design where participants order or control a robot to do a specific task, the robot and the human participants in our study design explore their behaviors without knowledge about any specific goals. We conducted a within-subjects study (N=24) were participants interacted with a fully autonomous Sphero BB8 robot with different behavioral regimes: one realizing an adaptive, intrinsically motivated behavior and the other being reactive, but not adaptive. A quantitative analysis of post-interaction questionnaires showed a significantly higher perception (r=.555, p=.007) of the dimension "Warmth" compared to the baseline behavior. Warmth is considered a primary dimension for social attitude formation in human  cognition. A human perceived as warm ( i.e. friendlyand trustworthy) experiences more positive social interactions. If future work demonstrates that this transfers to human-robot social cognition, then the generic methods presented here could be used to imbue robots with behavior leading to positive perception by  humans.
A challenge in using robots in human-robot interaction (HRI) is to design behavior that is engaging enough to encourage voluntary, long-term interaction, yet robust to the perturbations induced by human interaction. Here we evaluate if a physical robot that generates its behavior based on its intrinsic motivations could address this challenge. We use an information theoretic quantity - predictive information maximization - as an intrinsic motivation, as simulated experiments showed that this leads to playful, exploratory behavior that is robust to changes to the robot's morphology and to its environment. We present a game-like study design, which allows us to focus on the interplay between the robot and the human participant. In contrast to a study design where participants order or control a robot to do a specific task, the robot and the human participants in our study design explore their behaviors without any specific goals. We conducted a within-subjects study (N=24) where participants interacted with a fully autonomous Sphero BB8 robot with different behavioral regimes: one realizing an adaptive, intrinsically motivated behavior and the other being reactive, but not adaptive. A quantitative analysis of post-interaction questionnaires showed a significantly higher perception of the dimension "Warmth" compared to the baseline behavior. Warmth is considered a primary dimension for social attitude formation in human social cognition. A human perceived as warm ( friendly, trustworthy) experiences more positive social interactions. If future work demonstrates that this transfers to human-robot social cognition, then the generic methods presented here could be used to imbue robots with behavior leading to positive perception by and to positive social interaction with humans.
D
fully autonomous
R
an intrinsically motivated, physical robot can
a physical robot that generates its behavior based on its intrinsic motivations could
A
an information theoretic quantity -
A
-
R
in
to
R
environment. To the authors' knowledge there are no previous HRI studies that evaluate the effect of intrinsically motivated behavior in robots on the human perception of those robots.
to its environment.
D
knowledge about
R
were
where
D
(r=.555, p=.007)
A
social
R
i.e. friendlyand
friendly,
A
and to positive social interaction with