A Comparative Human-Robot Interaction Study between Face-Display and an Advanced Social Robot

Social robots are taking major roles in our lives through many sectors, ranging from eHealth to industry. However, social robots that can interact with people are expensive. In this study, we evaluate what makes an inexpensive retro-projected Face-Display/robot different from the advanced social robot "Furhat". How will a retro-projected robot be perceived compared to an advanced social robot? We built a retro-projected robot and compared it with Furhat. Seventy-two participants interacted with both robots in a between-subjects study design. We compare the two robots using different HRI questionnaires. Furthermore, we investigate which robot face is preferred to interact with, a human face (due to social agency) or an anime face (due to Japanese anime culture). In a retro-projected robot, a human face is preferable as it is rated higher in terms of anthropomorphization, trust, competence, and empathy. An anime face was rated higher in warmth, attractiveness, pleasantness, and comfort to see. In Furhat, few differences were noticed between the human and anime faces. A human face was perceived to be more emphatically responsive, and an anime face was rated highly in trustworthiness, warmth, competence, and empathic understanding. Furhat excelled significantly in the aspects of anthropomorphization, likeability, trustworthiness, warmth, competence, empathic responsiveness, attractiveness, and pleasantness to see. On the contrary, the retro-projected robot excelled in inducing social discomfort. Interestingly, both robots were perceived similarly in aspects of perceived intelligence and safety, empathic understanding, and comfort to see. An anime face on either robot is significantly more pleasant and is always perceived to be young in age. We deduce that retro-projected robots are inferior to Furhat in most HRI aspects and similar in a few of them. Thus, retro-projected robots can serve effectively in fields where the three aforementioned indifferent aspects are the main requirements in an application. Moreover, whenever aesthetics and visual pleasantness are needed, an anime face is preferred over a human one.