Picking Favorites: The Influence of Robot Eye-Gaze on Interactions with Multiple Users

We evaluated the effects of robot gaze behavior on interactions with multiple users in a museum-like setting. We posit that a robot needs to divide its attention between multiple users and may be able to use its gaze to ‘point’ at objects of interest. A 2 (person-oriented [only looking at participants] vs. object-oriented [also looking at artworks] gaze) x 2 (‘favored’ [looked at more] vs. ‘not favored’ [looked at less] by the robot) mixed factorial design (N=57) study was carried out in a museum-like lab setting where a robot talked about two artworks to groups of three participants. Results indicate that ‘favored’ participants did indeed pay more attention to the robot and the artworks. However, surprisingly they paid more attention when the robot did not look over to the object of interest compared to when it did give this gaze cue. The findings suggest that using an object-oriented gaze as a cue for people to look at an object may not carry across readily from person-to-person to human-robot communication. People had trouble interpreting the cue and were possibly distracted by the robot’s movement.