ABSTRACT
In conversational interactions with others, human beings basically prefer quick reaction times, although appropriate reaction times differ among various types of interaction partners, including other humans, computers, and robots. This chapter describes the appropriate reaction time of a turn-around behavior after being touched by different video stimuli. We focused on two characteristics of reaction times in touch interactions: the length of time from being touched to the start of a reaction behavior (before-reaction time) and the length of the reaction behavior (after-reaction time). We investigated the differences of appropriate reaction times using different types of models: three robots (Sota, Nao, and Pepper) and humans (a man and a woman). Our web-based survey experiment showed that the appropriate reaction times are different among these models. Robotics researchers typically apply timing characteristics based on analysis results from human–human interaction, although using the appropriate reaction time of human models is not optimal for each robot. Thus, our results concluded that applying different reaction time behavior design is needed to achieve the appropriate reaction behaviors of robots.
