I. Introduction
During the last decades numerous humanoid robotic systems have come to be. One element that is consistent among them all is the fact they are all equipped with a head. As from the practical point of view, it is the most logical place to mount the visual and the auditory systems. But one might say that it is also an important part of human-robot interaction (HRI), especially for face-to-face communication, as the head provides a natural means of human interaction with a robot. This leads to the question, “what elements are important in the design of a robotic head for HRI?”. For instance, we have studied how the quality of the projected image effects people's identification of the avatar's gender with the original “Mask-Bot” [1]. For interaction, the head should be able to communicate using auditory (verbal and non-verbal) as well as visual communication. But what about its appearance? To explore this question, we developed a robotic head that can be used to carry out research into how the appearance of an animated face displayed onto a robotic head effects HRI.