Unconscious and Intentional Human Motion Cues for Expressive Robot-Arm Motion Design

TL;DR

This paper explores how human unconscious and intentional motion cues can inform the design of expressive robot-arm movements, emphasizing timing and embodiment to improve human perception of robot expressiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a method to incorporate human motion timing cues into robot-arm motion design and evaluates their impact on observer impressions across different presentation modalities.

Findings

Late-phase motion timing influences impression formation.

Physical embodiment enhances motion cue interpretability.

Varying movement speed and stop duration affects expressiveness.

Abstract

This study investigates how human motion cues can be used to design expressive robot-arm movements. Using the imperfect-information game Geister, we analyzed two types of human piece-moving motions: natural gameplay (unconscious tendencies) and instructed expressions (intentional cues). Based on these findings, we created phase-specific robot motions by varying movement speed and stop duration, and evaluated observer impressions under two presentation modalities: a physical robot and a recorded video. Results indicate that late-phase motion timing, particularly during withdrawal, plays an important role in impression formation and that physical embodiment enhances the interpretability of motion cues. These findings provide insights for designing expressive robot motions based on human timing behavior.