A Study on the Implementation of Social Workers' Nonverbal Behavioral Skills into Interactive Robots

Focus on the behavior that accompanies laughter.

Abstract

In this study, we analyzed videos of one-on-one conversations between two social workers (SW) and three elderly people, and clarified the face-to-face skill of the SW, which is a nonverbal behavior in which the SW turns his upper body upward and laughs during a laughing scene. The face-to-face skill of the SW and the vertical vibration associated with human laughter were implemented in the interactive robots as control guidelines. Then, we investigated the impressions given to people by the behavior of the interactive robots with different degree of body movements in a dialogue experiment of a laughing scene. Through the analysis, it was suggested that the larger the body movement, the better the impression.