Social Telecommunication Experience with Full-Body Ownership Humanoid Robot

Abstract

"Beaming" systems aim to physically transfer a person to a remote place and whilst many researchers have attempted to facilitate a beaming system based on technological advances in teleoperation, robotics, and virtual reality; however, telecommunication experiences with full-body ownership have not yet been rigorously investigated. The present study aims to develop a beaming system that provide a full-body ownership through a humanoid robot, and investigate users' telecommunication experiences as roles of visitor and local with different levels of controllability. Forty participants were assigned to both visitor and local roles, and their copresence, usability, eye-contact, emotion, verbal, and gesture communications were investigated. The results suggested that the subjective reports on the telecommunication experience of the visitors were generally controlled in a stepwise manner depending on the level of embodiment controllability, whereas that of the locals were not. However, participants' emotion, verbal, and gesture communications showed synchronizing tendencies between the visitor and the local. The implications of these results for future physical beaming systems are discussed.