Investigation of the influence of the gaze and appearance of agents passing by people in a virtual reality space on human behavior.

Abstract

We investigate effects of humanlike and non-humanlike agents' gazes on human behavior in a scenario where a person and a robot pass each other in a virtual reality space. It is reported that a robot's gaze with a non-humanlike appearance attracts more attention from subjects. It is necessary to investigate how gaze of humanlike agents affects humans' movement paths and gaze in the VR space in comparison to the agent with non-humanlike appearance. We analyze subjects' movement paths in the scenario and how many seconds the subjects gaze at the passing agents. As a result, when the subjects and the agents pass by each other, the agents' appearance does not affect subjects' movement paths. The humanlike agent that gazes at subjects is not often gazed at, while the non-humanlike agent that gazes at subjects attracts more attention.