The increasing deployment of delivery robots has highlighted both opportunities and challenges, including intentional and unintentional impediments to these robots. This study explores the design space of robot behavior to respond to such situations while considering the social group characteristics of the human interactants from the perspective of a bystander. In focus groups (n = 13), we identified human personas who (un)intentionally impede the tasks of delivery robots and collaboratively designed potentially suitable robot responses, resulting in the identification of seven human personas and five robot personas. The suitability of robot responses to human personas was subsequently evaluated in a within-between-subject online survey (n = 49), which also examined the influence of gendered robot voice (male vs. female; between-subject factor). The findings reveal a clear preference for passive and polite robot responses over assertive robot responses, with no significant differences in perception between male and female-voiced robots. This study provides insights for designers seeking to create effective and socially aware delivery robots capable of managing obstructive encounters.

When social robots are joining human teams it is relevant to not only study the social dynamics within these human-robot mixed groups but also to explore whether outsiders perceive them as groups. Perceiving higher or lower groupness of mixed groups potentially influences which expectations individuals have towards the group, its human and importantly its robot members. We examined how much outsiders perceive differently composed human-robot groups as a group. In a between-subjects video-based online study, participants rated videos of group interactions with diverse group compositions (i.e., 1 robot with 3 humans, 2 robots with 2 humans, and 3 robots with 1 human) whose members either did or did not wear a visual group token (i.e., the same wristband) regarding the perceived groupness. Group composition and visual token influenced perceived groupness with a group of 1 human and 3 robots being less perceived as a group. Visual tokens enhanced group perceptions. This research contributes to our comprehension of how people perceive human-robot groups.

Research has shown the potential of social robots to support learning in science, technology, and language. We contribute to this field by exploring how robots can support music learning. We report on a within-subjects experiment where 50 young learners practiced the piano in the presence of a robot assuming a non-evaluative and a self-assessment enhancing role implemented in a Wizard-of-Oz fashion. We examined whether the robot can make piano practice more fun, and whether initiating self-assessment to support self-regulated learning is a useful strategy for the robot. We collected quantitative self-report data to assess fun, learning, interest, engagement, and effort. We found a direct positive effect of fun on learning in the context of musical instrument practice. Path modeling showed a positive influence of having fun on learners' attitudes, interests, and learning outcomes in music education, particularly with the self- assessment robot role exhibiting superiority.

In social robotics, where people and robots interact in a social context, robot personality design is critical. Through voice, words, gestures, and nonverbal clues, social robots with expressive behaviors can display human-like actions, and the robot’s personality will ensure consistency. This research aims to create robot personalities expressed only by nonverbal cues. Differently from existing studies that test expressive behaviors with non-specialized participants, we look at how and why human movement analysts perceive distinct personalities in robots (introvert vs. extrovert) based on the robot’s movement and other dynamic features, such as joint position, head, and torso position, voice pitch, speed, and so on. We report the findings of a thematic analysis of the data obtained during a focus group with movement analysis experts who watched Pepper robot behaviors designed to be extrovert and introvert. Our findings lead to new guidelines for designing different robot movement features, including body symmetry, personality trait consistency, and social cue congruence during an interaction, all emphasized by the movement analyzers. Finally, we summarize the design principles for extrovert and introvert robot behaviors based on the combined findings of the focus group data analysis and literature review.

In music education, staying motivated has always been a crucial goal, especially for children. Earlier research has demonstrated how social robots could help improve motivation and increase the performance of children practicing music pieces. As important stakeholders, the attitudes and expec- tations of parents and music teachers are important factors that affect children’s and their own acceptance of applying social robots in music education. In this study, a survey was created and used to assess parents’ and music teachers’ attitudes, expectations, and intentions related to using social robots in music education. The survey results suggested that parents and music teachers expect robots to act as assistive and motivating agents, give positive feedback, and schedule and structure practice sessions. Moreover, parents expect a social robot to evaluate student performance, while music teachers focus more on positive encouragement. The biggest concerns of these stakeholders are whether the robots can convey the emotional aspects of music and demonstrate how to play the instrument. The intention of using robots is positively correlated with positive attitudes towards robots in general and the positive attitude towards robots specifically in the context of music education. The current study contributes insights into parents’ and music teachers’ attitudes and expectations as determinants of their acceptance of of social robots in music education, and provides a method for measuring these attitudes and expectations.

The application of social robots has recently been explored in various types of educational settings including music learning. Earlier research presented evidence that simply the presence of a robot can influence a person's task performance, confirming social facilitation theory and findings in human-robot interaction. Confirming the evaluation apprehension theory, earlier studies showed that next to a person's presence, also that person's social role could influence a user's performance: the presence of a (non-) evaluative other can influence the user's motivation and performance differently. To be able to investigate that, researchers need the roles for the robot which is missing now. In the current research, we describe the design of two social roles (i.e., evaluative role and non-evaluative role) of a robot that can have different appearances. For this, we used the SocibotMini: A robot with a projected face, allowing diversity and great flexibility of human-like social cue presentation. An empirical study at a real practice room including 20 participants confirmed that users (i.e., children) evaluated the robot roles as intended. Thereby, the current research provided the robot roles allowing to study whether the presence of social robots in certain social roles can stimulate practicing behavior and suggestions of how such roles can be designed and improved. Future studies can investigate how the presence of a social robot in a certain social role can stimulate children to practice.