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Many of the problems we face are solved in small groups. Using decades of research from psychology, HRI research is increasingly trying to understand how robots impact the dynamics and outcomes of these small groups. Current work almost exclusively uses humanoid robots that take on the role of an active group participant to influence interpersonal dynamics. We argue that this has limitations and propose an alternative design approach of using a peripheral robotic object. This paper presents Micbot, a peripheral robotic object designed to promote participant engagement and ultimately performance using nonverbal implicit interactions. The robot is evaluated in a 3 condition (no movement, engagement behaviour, random movement) laboratory experiment with 36 three-person groups (N=108). Results showed that the robot was effective in promoting not only increased group engagement but also improved problem solving performance. In the engagement condition, participants displayed more even backchanneling toward one another, compared to no movement, but not to the random movement. This more even distribution of backchanneling predicted better problem solving performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to constructively resolve interpersonal conflicts is a crucial set of social skills people need to effectively work and live well together. Is it possible to design social robots to support the early development of children's interpersonal conflict resolution skills? To investigate this question, 64 (32 pairs of) children ages 3-6 years engaged in a 50-minute play session consisting of 5 activities facilitated by the robot Keepon. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions. In the mediation condition, Keepon directed the play session flow by indicating when and which activity to switch to, and whenever possible, signaled the onset of object possession conflicts that occurred between the pair and offered prompts for constructive conflict resolution. In the control condition, Keepon only facilitated and directed the play session and did not intervene during children's conflicts. Results show that children were more likely to resolve conflicts constructively in the mediation condition than in the control condition, and that a key function for a robot mediator within the conflict process is to successfully flag the conflict onset. Drawing from these findings, we discuss design recommendation for a robot mediator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to design robots of the future so that they can enhance people's creative endeavors? Forty-eight young adults were asked to produce their most creative ideas in a small Zen rock garden in a laboratory setting. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In one condition, the robot Robovie (through a Wizard of Oz interface) encouraged participants to generate creative ideas (e.g., "Can you think of another way to do that?"), and pulled relevant images and video clip from the web for each participant to look at which could help spur the participant into more creative expressions. In a second condition, participants engaged in the same Zen rock garden task with the same core information, but through the modality of a self-paced PowerPoint presentation. Results showed that participants engaged in the creativity task longer and provided almost twice the number of creative expressions in the robot condition compared to the PowerPoint condition. Discussion focuses on a vision of social robotics coupled with advances in natural language processing to enhance the human creative mind and spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robots will increasingly take on roles in our social lives where they can cause humans harm. When robots do so, will people hold robots morally accountable? To investigate this question, 40 undergraduate students individually engaged in a 15-minute interaction with ATR's humanoid robot, Robovie. The interaction culminated in a situation where Robovie incorrectly assessed the participant's performance in a game, and prevented the participant from winning a $20 prize. Each participant was then interviewed in a 50-minute session. Results showed that all of the participants engaged socially with Robovie, and many of them conceptualized Robovie as having mental/emotional and social attributes. Sixty-five percent of the participants attributed some level of moral accountability to Robovie. Statistically, participants held Robovie less accountable than they would a human, but more accountable than they would a vending machine. Results are discussed in terms of the New Ontological Category Hypothesis and robotic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robots will increasingly take on roles in our social lives where they can cause humans harm. When robots do so, will people hold robots morally accountable? To investigate this question, 40 undergraduate students individually engaged in a 15-minute interaction with ATR's humanoid robot, Robovie. The interaction culminated in a situation where Robovie incorrectly assessed the participant's performance in a game, and prevented the participant from winning a $20 prize. Each participant was then interviewed in a 50-minute session. Results showed that all of the participants engaged socially with Robovie, and many of them conceptualized Robovie as having mental/emotional and social attributes. Sixty-five percent of the participants attributed some level of moral accountability to Robovie. Statistically, participants held Robovie less accountable than they would a human, but more accountable than they would a vending machine. Results are discussed in terms of the New Ontological Category Hypothesis and robotic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We offer three illustrative examples from one of our recent studies in HRI to suggest that it's possible for people to engage in mutual deliberation with a social robot. Each example illustrates discourse and argument, but ends through different means: Accepting the Robot as Arbitrator; Delegitimizing the Robot; and Agreeing to Disagree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how humor can be used as an interaction pattern to help establish sociality in human-robot interaction. Drawing illustratively from our published research on people interacting with ATR's humanoid robot Robovie, we highlight four forms of humor that we successfully implemented: wit and the ice-breaker, corny joke, subtle humor, and dry humor and self-deprecation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses converging evidence to support the hypothesis that personified robots and other embodied personified computational systems may represent a new ontological category, where ontology refers to basic categories of being, and ways of distinguishing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper broaches possibilities and limits of establishing psychological intimacy in HRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]