Let's Run an Online Proxemics Study! But, How Do Results Compare to In-Person?

Siya Kunde, Nathan Simms, Gerson Uriarte, Brittany A. Duncan

Abstract: Human-robot proxemics behaviors can vary significantly based on personal, robot, and environmental factors which, along with their deployment in public-facing interactions, calls for a wider and in-depth exploration. This paper explores the impact of the operational altitude of small unmanned aerial vehicle (sUAV) on users’ comfortable interaction distance. Additionally, we investigate the effectiveness of crowd-sourced prototyping of human-robot proxemics studies in order to conduct broader research faster. By leveraging interaction techniques from literature like video/sound and projective 2D distancing, we explore personal space interactions in online studies (N = 288) with the sUAV and the Double telepresence robot. We then compare the findings with our in-person interaction data (N = 36) and to prior literature. While in-person interactions are the ultimate goal, online methods can be used to reduce resources (including equipment, costs), allow larger sample sizes, and may lead to a more comprehensive sampling of population than would be expected from in-person studies. The lessons learned from this work are applicable broadly within the social robotics community, even outside those who are interested in proxemics interactions, to conduct future crowd-sourced experiments. The various modalities provided similar trends when compared with data from in-person studies. While the distances may not have been precise compared to those measured in the real world, these experiments are useful to detect patterns in human-robot interactions, and to conduct formative studies with new technology before committing limited resources to in-person testing.