Robot-Induced Group Conversation Dynamics: A Model to Balance Participation and Unify Communities

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of robot participation in group conversations and assess the effectiveness of different addressing policies. The study involved a total of 300 participants, who were divided into groups of four and engaged in a dialogue with a humanoid robot. The robot acted as a moderator, using information obtained during the conversation to determine which speaker to address. The study found that the policy used by the robot significantly impacted the conversation dynamics. Specifically, the robot provided more balanced attention to each participant and reduced the number of subgroups.