Showing Sympathy via Embodied Affective Robot Touch, GIFs, and Texts: People are Indifferent

Abstract

Social touch is important for improving social connection, and it is one method that may improve online communication with people at a distance. In the study, we examined the use of social touch from a robot to convey sympathy, in comparison to merely text or GIFs. Fifty-one pairs of friends entered the lab: one (the recipient) talked about a minor inconvenience, and the other (the giver) comforted their friend using one of the three methods described above. Results indicate that the touching method that we used was not effective for supporting the recipient. Follow-up interviews from five pairs of participants suggest ways to improve robot touch, including customizing touch to individuals, making the robot more biological (e.g., warm), and providing feedback that the touch was received.