Expressing thought: Improving robot readability with animation principles

The animation techniques of anticipation and reaction can help create robot behaviors that are human readable such that people can figure out what the robot is doing, reasonably predict what the robot will do next, and ultimately interact with the robot in an effective way. By showing forethought before action and expressing a reaction to the task outcome (success or failure), we prototyped a set of human-robot interaction behaviors. In a 2 (forethought vs. none: between) × 2 (reaction to outcome vs. none: between) × 2 (success vs. failure task outcome: within) experiment, we tested the influences of forethought and reaction upon people's perceptions of the robot and the robot's readability. In this online video prototype experiment (N=273), we have found support for the hypothesis that perceptions of robots are influenced by robots showing forethought, the task outcome (success or failure), and showing goal-oriented reactions to those task outcomes. Implications for theory and design are discussed.