An exploration of simple reactive responses for conveying aliveness using the Haru robot

Abstract

This paper describes the development of simple robotic reactive responses for the tabletop robot Haru. While reactive responses in organisms are associated with a biological purpose, they may also play a role in conveying agency in the sense of aliveness. In this paper, we are therefore interested in the design of simple reflexive behaviors that can convey a sense of agency for the Haru robot (see Fig. 1). To this end, we explore what kind of reactive responses humans find appropriate for a platform like Haru in different situations. Specifically, we conducted an elicitation study in which participants were asked to design Haru’s reactive response similar to either (1) that of a human, (2) a pet animal, or (3) in a freestyle manner befitting its design. Since Haru is neither clearly anthropomorphic nor zoomorphic, it is not straightforward what model would be most suitable to drive its behaviors. Our results show that, while participants design different types of behavior depending on their experimental group, it is possible to identify a range of behaviors used by all. This indicates that it is possible to design intuitively understandable reactive behaviors for a novel companion robot whose form has no clear analogue in nature. These behaviors are unique to Haru but contain elements from human and pet animal behaviors.