Human-Robot Dynamic Social Interaction
NTT- MIT Research Collaboration -- January 2000
Katsunori Shimohara
Junji Yamato
Rodney A. Brooks
Cynthia Breazeal
Brian Scassellati
MIT:
NTT:
NTT researchers are interested in the question of whether a physical robot produces a more direct emotional coupling with human beings than does a computer generated graphical image of a similar robot. At MIT we are building a robot that has human-like facial expressions and shoulder and neck gestures, and that perceives human motion and facial expressions. This is coupled to an emotional system so that the person and the robot naturally follow normal human communication social dynamics. This robot will be installed at the NTT Communications Science Laboratories in Kyoto where the response of human subjects will be measured and compared to their response a graphical face interface.
We have already developed a prototype robot, named Kismet, and pictured here which is capable of engaging a person in dynamic social interaction. We are currently building a much more capable robot for NTT.
Active vision system
Original Kismet
The big question:
• humans naturally interact with
an embodied robot
• is the physical nature ultimately
important, or will a person have
identical reactions to an
equivalently programmed 3-D
graphical agent?
MIT’s role: provide a physically embodied robot that can enter into dynamic
interactions with a person.
NTT’s role: measure the physiological response of people interacting with the
robot and interacting with a 3-D graphical agent and compare them.
New facial structure
under current
evaluation
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