The Role of Autonomy and Interaction Type on Spatial Comfort in an HRI Scenario

This extended abstract presents findings from a live HRI study carried out in the UH robot house. The participants (33 in total) were approached by a robot for 3 different interaction types and the amount of control the participant had over the robot's approach was varied. This study focuses on the participant post-experimental evaluation of their comfort with the robots approaches in these different scenarios. The results--indicate that both the degree of control and the purpose of the interaction independently influence how comfortable participants were with the spatial behaviour of the robot.