Effect of Emotion Expression with Blinking Colored Eyes of a Robot on Emotional Story Understanding

Abstract

We are developing a method of emotion expression with blinking pattern. Our previous study confirmed that emotions expressed by blinking pattern are perceived correctly, and are able to elicit prosocial behavior from those who see the emotion expressions. In the present study, we investigated whether our artificial emotion expression reinforces perceived emotion when people listen to short stories from a robot. Experimental results showed that, for some stories, blinking colored eyes of a robot reinforce the subjective perception of the target emotion and weaken the other emotions.