Core Elements of Social Interaction for Constructive Human-Robot Interaction
This work addresses the challenge of evaluating human-robot interaction for developers and researchers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing concepts without introducing new methods or data.
The paper tackles the problem of measuring the quality of social interaction between humans and robots by proposing a model based on engagement and co-regulation, with the result being a framework for assessing interaction efficiency and user satisfaction.
We present a discovery-based, first version, explicit model of social interaction that provides a basis for measuring the quality of interaction of a human user with a social robot. The two core elements of the social interaction model are engagement and co-regulation. Engagement emphasizes the \textit{qualitative nature} of social interaction and the fact that a user needs to be drawn into the interaction with the robot. Co-regulation emphasizes the interaction process and the fact that a user and a robot need to be acting together. We argue that the quality of social interaction with a robot can be measured in terms of how efficiently engagement and co-regulation are established and maintained during the interaction and how satisfied the user is with the interaction.