ABSTRACT
Non-verbal communication cues such as gaze behaviors and touch styles are essential during close interaction with people and social robots. Although these cues have been extensively studied in conversational interaction between human and robots, we still don’t know how they influence people’s impressions of social robots in touch interaction situations. To better understand the role of communication cues in touch interactions, we conducted an experiment with 28 participants who interacted with a robot that was equipped with different gaze behaviors and touch styles. Our results showed that when they were being touched by a robot, participants preferred a robot’s gaze behavior that only looked at their faces more than a gaze behavior that looked at their faces, hands, and then back to their faces. Our participants also preferred a touch style in which they touched the robot more than a touch style in which they were touched by the robot.
