“He is looking at you...” Noticings and accounts of a Pepper robot’s non-verbal behavior in a task-oriented setting
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2022-08-30
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en
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The design of social robots often includes all kinds of non-verbal features, but still little is known on how such features are drawn upon by humans in interacting with these machines. Using an existing dataset of health interviews conducted by a Pepper robot with elderly participants, this thesis takes a conversation analytic approach to investigate how and when non-verbal behavior by the robot is brought up, specifically looking at the part of the interactions where the instructing nurse was still present. The verbalizations on robot non-verbal behavior (35 instances in 19 encounters) are done in three distinct ways, namely through 1) noticings done as part of getting to know the robot; 2) noticings as a diagnostic tool during interactional trouble; and 3) pre-emptive accounts for anormative robot behavior through warnings and/or explanations by the nurse. A relatively wide range of the robot’s non-verbal behavior is noticed as part of the 'getting to know’-activity (e.g., bleeps, nods, gaze, eye lights, bodily position), while only nodding and gaze are treated as relevant during problem solving, and pre-emptive accounts only concern gaze. Lastly, the nurse generally responds to noticings by the participant with agreement and on occasion accounts for the robot behavior by presenting it as normal or tying it to her own actions. Nurse also pre-emptively accounts for Pepper’s gaze often marking the robot’s deviating behavior as a technical issue and/or as something that will be solved when the nurse leaves. Overall, human interlocutors approach the robot ‘body’ using human social norms and work to uphold the applicability of those norms through accounting for anormative behavior.
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