Investigating how people deal with silence in a human-robot conversation

Kiyona Oto, Jianmei Feng, Michita Imai

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on silence, which appears as a gap or delay in giving a response during a conversation and is one of the most important factors to consider to have a more natural conversation with robots. In the conversation between a human and a robot, silence can be divided into two parts: first, a silence that a human uses for a robot and second, a silence that a robot takes for a human. Therefore, we conducted a conversation test between a human and a robot in order to clarify the following two points: one, whether humans use silence for a robot and two, how silence used by a robot can be interpreted by humans. The results of the experiment indicate that humans certainly use silence for a robot for some reasons. Participants were asked to label the silences in four different types: Semantic Silence, Syntactical and Grammatical Silence, Interactive Silence, and Robotic Silence. As a result of this classification, there were cases where humans used Interactive Silence to be concerned for a robot, similar to that in case of a human conversation partner. It is now clear that humans use and regard silence in a form closer to a human conversation partner rather than a machine partner while in conversation with a communication robot. In particular, we found that sometimes humans use silence in social sense such as Interactive Silence, which is for the consciousness of a conversation partner.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationRO-MAN 2017 - 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages195-200
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781538635186
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017 Dec 8
Event26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2017 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: 2017 Aug 282017 Sept 1

Publication series

NameRO-MAN 2017 - 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
Volume2017-January

Other

Other26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2017
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period17/8/2817/9/1

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Control and Optimization

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