What a Laugh! – Effects of Voice and Laughter on a Social Robot’s Humorous Appeal and Recipients’ Transportation and Emotions in Humorous Robotic Storytelling

Storytelling is an important method not only in entertainment but also for education or therapy. Humor can improve storytelling due to its social functions. We investigate whether the humorous function of laughter can also be beneficial for robotic storytelling. We conducted a study focusing on the effects of voice type (human vs. synthetic) and laughter (presence vs. absence) on the robot’s perceived humorous appeal as well as recipients’ transportation, i.e. their absorption into the story, and emotions. No significant differences were found regarding the manipulations. The type of voice and use of laughter are therefore less relevant than assumed. However, it is shown that negative emotions are significantly reduced by the humorous story presented by the robot. Furthermore, the story was perceived as more funny and elicited increased transportation when being received by the robot compared to reading the story. In conclusion, this study indicates that robots are generally suitable for humorous storytelling and interesting results for future research on humorous robotic storytelling.