Impression of Robots Adaptively Refraining from Actions in Human-Robot Cooperative Scenario

The development of social communication robots is progressing toward the realization of a human-robot symbiotic society. In such a society, robots are expected to behave cooperatively when interacting with surrounding humans. Robots that can adapt to implicitly generated group norms even without direct interactions have been designed to realize human-robot symbiosis groups. This study focuses on a novel aspect of implicit cooperation between humans and robots, i.e., “refraining (Enryo in Japanese),” which means intentionally withholding action concerning group members to be considerate of the group members although he/she has ability to do that. Furthermore, it investigates the impression of a robot expressing refraining behavior according to the behavior of humans engaged in a cooperative task with the robot in a virtual space. The results reveal that the robot’s refraining behavior promotes the human’s active behavior. Additionally, it suggests constructing a relationship in which the robot and the human support each other.