Results
Subjects were timed as to how long they held their arms in the air. Subjects who did not follow GulliBot's instructions were given a time of 0. Average times were compared between conditions, as were percentage of people who participated. Gender differences were also examined. Our results were not quite significant (p = 0.07) but our sample size was small. There appears to be a slight trend in that women were more likely than men to follow GulliBot's instructions, but held their arms up for a shorter period of time. However, further experimentation is needed to say anything conclusive
Subject Breakdown
With Eye
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Without Eye
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- People wearing headphones / earbuds not approached
- No groups (or pairs) approached, though 1 subject had another person join after start of test
Experiment Details
- With Eye: n = 13; Without Eye: n = 14
- Additional 2 subjects (with eye) said “no” when asked to participate; not included in analysis
- Additional 1 subject (without eye) completely ignored robot; not included in analysis
Percentage of People who Followed GulliBot's Instructions
Average Time with Arms in Air
By Gender: Percentage of People who Followed GulliBot's Instructions
By Gender: Average Time with Arms in Air
Interesting Observations
- 1 subject felt like he was “surrendering” to the robot when he put his hands up
- A few people waved when the robot greeted them, and one responded with a “Hi!”
- Several people turned their stretches into other motions, e.g. fixing their hair
Limitations
- Gullibot did not deliver the advice by speech, which may have reduced the effect of eye contact
- Timing implemented was not fully automatic -- when the final message appeared was manually controlled, so people may have kept their arms up for a longer period of time if they expected the robot to prompt them when 5 seconds were up
- At CMU (tech orientation of population) -- students here automatically assumed the technology was doing what it was actually doing. For the most part, no one even considered the fact that it was teleoperated
- Results specific for this design -- perhaps the appearance of the robot influenced people more than we expected