Giorgi Loladze Undergraduate Dissertation 2015/16

Can different ways of delivering information affect human-robot interaction?

Supervised by A.Sharkey

Abstract

It would be interesting to observe if there would be a difference between two conditions where the content is the same, while the manner of presenting is different.

For the purposes of this project, NAO robot was utilized to give a presentation, content of which was general information about Gravitational Waves that was written in two different styles. Various hand gestures were modeled that allowed two different methods of presenting; each trial was run twice physically and once virtually. In one scenario, the robot used subjective/personal words while delivering the presentation with excessive usage of gestures, in a charismatic manner.  In another scenario the robot presented factual information with no usage of subjective words with some usage of gestures. The content of the two presentations were same, while manner of presenting was distinct. 

After adequate research and modelling, the actual demonstration took place, for which volunteers were randomly recruited. A signed consent was obtained from the participants who answered questionnaires before and after the presentation given by the robot. The questionnaire utilized general and Likert-style questions, and multiple choice questions about the Gravitational Waves. The raw data obtained was used to measure the differences and effectiveness of presentations.

The results suggested that participants rated their knowledge higher after the presentation, and they believed that the charismatic robot was more engaging. The average quiz score was 70% which suggests that information delivery was efficient. However, there was no statistical difference between the correctly answered questions between the two conditions.