Does Robot Eye-gaze Help Humans Identify Objects?

The success of a social robot relies on its interactions with humans. To enhance human-robot interaction I looked toward useful forms of communication in human-human interaction. Humans communicate through verbal and non-verbal cues, in particular, my study focuses on eye gaze and the effects of its application on human-robot interaction. Specifically, I wanted to know whether having a robot exhibit eye gaze in a human-robot interaction would lead to humans feeling more comfortable and engaged, and whether this eye gaze would be a useful assistant in distinguishing between similar objects. My experiment involved a robot instructing a human to identify a target object. In the experimental conditions the robot would move its eyes toward the target object while describing the target through speech. Participants did not identify objects faster when the robot moved its eyes toward the target and participants did not report feeling more engaged when the robot moved its eyes. However, participants did report higher levels of comfort when the robot exhibited eye gaze and participants also felt the robot was more natural as well. Thus, in the hopes of creating successful social robots it is important to implement eye gaze cues in the robot in order for humans to feel more comfortable during the human-robot interaction. Having humans feel more comfortable might then encourage them to interact with the robot longer and might also encourage them to interact with the robot, or any other social robot, more often.