Region of eye contact of humanoid nao robot is similar to that of a human

Abstract

Eye contact is an important social cue in human-human interaction, but it is unclear how easily it carries over to humanoid robots. In this study we investigated whether the tolerance of making eye contact is similar for the Nao robot as compared to human lookers. We measured the region of eye contact (REC) in three conditions (sitting, standing and eye height). We found that the REC of the Nao robot is similar to that of human lookers. We also compared the centre of REC with the robot's gaze direction when looking straight at the observer's nose bridge. We found that the nose bridge lies slightly above the computed centre of the REC. This can be interpreted as an asymmetry in the downward direction of the REC. Taken together these results enable us to model eye contact and the tolerance for breaking eye contact with the Nao robot. © Springer International Publishing 2013.