Expressing emotions using gait of humanoid robot

Reading other's emotions is the key of a successful human-human communication. If we imagine using robots in human environment, the ability of robots to express emotions will help human communicate with the artificial agents. In studies about robots' expressing emotions, conversations, facial expression and simple gestures are mainly used. However, another way to express emotions is necessary to enable the expression in various scenes. This study focused on emotions conveyed by gait and examined the effectiveness of expression of emotions of a humanoid robot during gait. In the experiment, we generated 5 kinds of robot's emotional gait and showed them to the participants. Then participants forecast robot's emotion. This experiment was performed in Japan and in France, to investigate some cultural differences. As a result, this study shows that it is possible to convey emotions by gait for a humanoid robot and also that there is a cultural difference in forecasting emotions.