The Effects of Natural Sounds and Proxemic Distances on the Perception of a Noisy Domestic Flying Robot

When flying robots are used in close-range interaction with humans, the noise they generate, also called consequential sound, is a critical parameter for user acceptance. We conjecture that there benefit adding natural sounds to noisy domestic drones. To test our hypothesis experimentally, we carried out mixed-methods research study (N=56) on reported perception of sonified robot three sound conditions at distances. The studied were respectively added robot’s inherent noises during flying; namely bird song and rain plus control condition no sound. distances set according proxemics; near , middle far . Our results show or affects participants’ perceptions, proxemic play nonnegligible role. For instance, found participants liked most when drone was while disliked same perceptions strongly depended their associations interpretations deriving from previous experience. derived six concrete design recommendations.