Effects of Feedback Styles on Performance and Preference for an Exercise Coach

Different people respond to feedback and guidance in different ways. Their preferences may even change depending on their mood, fatigue, physical health, etc. We present a robot exercise coach that provides both verbal and nonverbal feedback. We first introduce an exercise evaluation method where the camera feed from the robot is used to evaluate how well people perform exercises. We then present a multi-modal feedback controller that uses the exercise evaluation to respond with verbal and nonverbal feedback in different styles (firm and encouraging). Our user study found that participants have significantly different performances and subjective experiences with the different styles. We also found differences in how participants with different preferences for the styles perform with the different styles. These results show that varying feedback styles has an impact and builds the basis for a robot that adapts its style in real-time to personalize to the individual.