Semantic Gesture in Robot Humor: A New Dimension to Enhance the Humor Expression

Abstract

Humor is pervasive in our daily life. It serves not only to build rapport but also to ease tension during interactions and create stronger social interactions. In the realm of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), humor also plays a vital role in fostering engaging and positive interactions. However, endowing robots with the ability to express humor appropriately is still a challenge. Drawing inspiration from pantomime and sign language humor, our research focuses on the role of semantic gestures in the social robot's expression of humor. In this work, we conducted an experiment in which NAO robot made humorous performances by using a series of semantic gestures. The results of the online survey show that the semantic gesture can significantly enhance the degree of funniness of the robot humor performance. Furthermore, the impact of the semantic gesture is closely tied to both the clarity of its expression and the appropriateness of the chosen semantic words.