Persuasive communication that emphasizes a sense of ownership and self-determination is essential to achieve social good, such as the sustainable development goals. Although agent-based persuasion mainly targets attitude change, encouraging proactive participation in social issues also requires attention to the awareness of change, focusing on developing these internal motivations. This study aims to identify effective persuasion by agents regarding their sense of ownership and self-determination. To this end, we conducted an online survey with 400 participants, using a 2 × 2 design that manipulated the "target of persuasive act" (direct persuasion vs. indirect persuasion through agent-to-agent conversation [overheard communication (OHC)]) and the "target of persuasive content" (group- vs. individual-directed messages). The results revealed that individual-directed messages conveyed through the OHC were more effective.

In both human–human and human–agent interactions, speakers often face challenges in conveying internal imagery and emotional subtleties through language alone. Although virtual backgrounds have garnered attention in online environments for impression management and contextual enhancement, we reconceptualize this function as addressing a broader limitation in real-world interactions: the physical environment is typically static and unresponsive, potentially constraining expressive and empathic exchange. Previous studies have explored visual augmentation to support dialogue; however, several systems rely on surface-level audio cues or present visual elements in a manner that disrupts conversational flow. This study presents a system that interprets ongoing conversations in real time and displays dynamically generated background imagery behind each participant. This ambient augmentation strategy aims to enrich the conversational experience without demanding direct attention. We implemented a prototype system using speech recognition, large language models, and image generation to analyze spoken discourse and render semantically congruent visual backgrounds. To evaluate its impact, we conducted a within-subjects experiment (N = 20) comparing three conditions: static background, irrelevant images, and semantically adaptive images. The findings indicated that the adaptive condition significantly enhanced participants’ subjective conversational experience, including enjoyment and perceived conversational depth, while maintaining disruption levels comparable to those of the single condition. Although the transcript analysis did not reveal statistically significant effects, the trends suggested that adaptive imagery may contribute to more stable vocabulary patterns and broader topical diversity. These results suggest that dynamically shared backgrounds function not only as decorative elements but also as subtle mechanisms that improve user experience and promote richer conversational exchanges. Although our evaluation was limited to human–human settings, the observed benefits of adaptive backgrounds suggest promising avenues for extending this approach to human–agent interaction.

Cybernetic avatars (CAs) play a key role in Japan’s vision for Society 5.0 – a society where cyberspace and the physical world are closely intertwined to address social challenges. In-body cybernetic avatars, a sub-category, are remote-controlled micro-/nano-scale avatars or robots operating inside organisms, such as the human body. To explore future applications and implications of interactions with these technologies, we conducted an expert workshop (N = 16) in Japan. Experts co-created visions of a desirable future related to in-body CAs, identifying types of interactions, benefits, and potential risks. In a second study, we engaged an international student audience (N = 174) with three expert-developed scenarios to assess non-expert perceptions beyond Japan. We find that non-experts responded positively to all three types of in-body CA interactions. In addition, our study contributes to a better understanding of potential benefits and risks of in-body CAs from experts’ perspectives and sheds light on which factors are perceived as most impactful by non-experts.

Learning-by-teaching has been proposed as an effective method for enhancing learners’ motivation by enabling them to deepen their understanding by teaching others. Prior research has demonstrated that this effect extends to scenarios in which learners teach virtual agents instead of humans, underscoring the educational potential of virtual agents. Consequently, designing agent-based environments that effectively support learners’ motivation has emerged as a key challenge. This work focuses on the number of teachable agents as an environmental factor influencing learners’ experiences. We developed a virtual classroom in which participants delivered lessons to either 1- or 20-agent students. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we examined whether the stress induced by an increased number of agents functions as eustress—a positive form of stress that enhances performance—or distress—a negative form that impairs it. We further investigated how these types of stress influence learners’ psychological states and behavioral outcomes. An experiment was conducted with 16 university students under two conditions: teaching a single agent or teaching 20 agents. The participants’ levels of eustress and distress were measured via standardized questionnaires, and learning outcomes were evaluated via subjective reports, test scores, and teaching durations.

Abstract: In this study, the authors conducted Hanabi experiments under four conditions: three conditions in which humans played Hanabi using a UI that could present the order in which to give hints, as well as a UI that could indicate that a situation was troubling, in addition to the usual Hanabi game UI; and one condition in which an AI agent and a human played Hanabi. As a result, it was found that in conditions where the order of giving hints was made clear and humans could communicate their concerns, humans took less risky actions and improved their scores compared to the normal UI. This shows that the slight clues that have been overlooked in previous research were important for cooperative behavior. In addition, it was also found that the combination of agents and humans tended to show higher scores than the combination of humans.

Abstract: This study delves into the dynamics of human-agent interaction (HAI), specifically focusing on how communication patterns and personalities (both users’ and virtual ones) influence user preferences of Embodied Virtual Agents (EVAs). Under the Big Five personality framework, we designed two personality-wise opposite EVAs - a shy SA and a confident CA. We then examine such effect of communication pattern and personality matching on user preferences. The experiment involved an online survey with 87 participants, consisting of questionnaires, video evaluations, and interactive tasks. Results demonstrated significant differentiation in the agents' perceived personalities and revealed user preference for SA, although the reasons remain to be elucidated. The preliminary findings on the simultaneously effective factors of similarity-attraction principle and complementary-attraction principle are unprecedented and will be further investigated in our future work.

Currently, the development of the metaverse lies in the hands of industry. Citizens have little influence on this process. Instead, to do justice to the pluralism of (digital) societies, we should strive for an open discourse including many different perspectives on the metaverse and its core technologies such as AI. We utilize a participatory speculative design (PSD) approach to explore Japanese citizens' perspectives on future metaverse societies, as well as social and ethical implications. Our contributions are twofold. Firstly, we demonstrate the effectiveness of PSD in engaging citizens in critical discourse on emerging technologies like the metaverse by presenting our workshop framework and participants' processes. Secondly, we identify key themes from participants' perspectives, providing insights for culturally sensitive design and development of virtual environments. Our analysis shows that participants imagine the metaverse to have the potential to solve a variety of societal issues; for example, breaking down barriers of physical environments for communication, social interaction, crisis preparation, and political participation, or tackling identity-related issues. Regarding future metaverse societies, participants' imaginations raise critical questions about human-AI relations, technical solutionism, politics and technology, globalization and local cultures, and immersive technologies. We discuss implications and contribute to expanding conversations on metaverse developments.

Telework "avatar work," in which people with disabilities can engage in physical work such as customer service, is being implemented in society. In order to enable avatar work in a variety of occupations, we propose a mobile sales system using a mobile frozen drink machine and an avatar robot “OriHime”, focusing on mobile customer service like peddling. The effect of the peddling by the system on the customers are examined based on the results of video annotation.

Advances in technology have made it possible for people who could not participate in work due to difficulties in social participation to work. It is becoming easier for people who have lost their abilities due to the decline in their abilities as a result of aging or due to some kind of disability to enter work remotely. However, the lack of capacity of these people hinders the implementation of the task. In order to compensate for the lack of human ability and promote remote participation in society, the idea of supplementing a part of remote human ability has been proposed as in Cybernetic Avatar. However, it is not easy to automate the capabilities required at work. In this study, the authors propose a remote-controlled avatar method for people who lack the ability to temporarily borrow the ability of others. The study looked at the models needed for these avatars, and created a prototype to see what problems could arise when working. As a result of the verification, three gestures were observed: symbol gesture, motion gesture, and shape gesture. In addition, as the intention arbitration between the two is performed smoothly, it was observed that the intention arbitration changes from the motion gesture to the symbol gesture.

The game agents in cooperative game must be not only intelligent but also acceptable to the player to provide a good game experience. A particularly important factor in implementing an acceptable agent is to make the risk-taking tendency closer to the player. People tend to be attracted to people who has same preference and make similar behavior with themselves. Thus, it is estimated that people are also attracted to cooperative game agents who has same tendency. In this study, we implemented two agents with different risk-taking tendencies. Participants evaluated gameplay with each agent. As a result, Participants with a high-risk taking tendency perceived that agents with a high-risk taking tendency understood the rules of the game more. And vice versa. This suggests that it is possible to improve the player's game experience by making the agent's risk tendency similar to the player's one.

In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of the social distance between a virtual agent and users, and the gaze instruction using a display that can be viewed stereoscopically without using any wearable devices. An actual robot cannot always maintain an appropriate interpersonal distance, through nonverbal gestures owing to its limited range of motion. Because large movements may harm humans, the nonverbal gestures of robots are limited in the real world. In this work, 14 participants were asked how far they wanted to move from a robot posing as a museum guide agent. They were also asked to identify the point at which they felt the agent was gazing. There was a significant distance between the initial position and the position to which the participants moved in the first task under two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) scenarios. The participants moved a significant distance in the first task. In the gaze estimation task, however, the error between the 3D and 2D evaluations was significantly lesser, at a point far from the agent.

Eye contact is crucial in social interactions, linking with sincerity and friendliness. However, blind people cannot see and make eye contact when they communicate with sighted people. It influences the involvement of blind people in blind-sighted conversations. Based on this context, we implemented Social glasses with an eye-tracking system, aiming to improve the communication quality between blind and sighted people in face-to-face conversations. Social glasses attempts to simulate the appropriate gaze for blind people, especially establishing the “eye contact” in blind-sighted conversations. To evaluate the impact of the interactive gaze displayed on the Social glasses, we performed dyadic-conversation tests under four experimental conditions (No Gaze, Constant Gaze, Random Gaze, and Interactive Gaze) for 40 participants. Quantitative results showed that the Interactive gaze has a positive impact on improving the communication quality between blind and sighted people, which were consistent with a qualitative analysis of the participants’ comments.

In this research, the authors considered a method of generating an ecosystem of learning between classrooms using robots that children can edit themselves. A robot that allows children to choose faces and motions, as well as create user content and receive feedback on that content, was developed. This robot system was introduced and tested in an elementary school with 164 students. First, the 5thgrades 18 children were taught how to set up the robot, and then they learned how to create usable content. From this, 19 robot contents were created. Next, the robot system was monitored for 2 months, and the teacher-created content was compared with the student-created content. It was found that the content created by the children was more interesting to the students than the teacher created content. Through an interview with the school librarian, the authors found that the classroom has enough learning ecosystem with elderly to younger children.

This study analyzes the value conflict of a paper on fan fiction writing that used online fan fiction novels as a source to extract and filter sexual expressions from text. The boundaries of public and private information are ambiguous because users are not always aware of or have agreed to the fact that their content is to be used openly. The case was complicated by the fact that the use of these data by researchers violated an unconsciously infringed upon right of a vulnerable community with a weak legal position. This paper describes the debate on this topic among researchers from engineering and humanities fields on whether the purpose of the research was ethically acceptable; how the systems can be embedded in ethical values; and what ethical, legal, social, and educational lessons are appropriate for governance of artificial intelligence (AI). Our analysis aimed not only to clarify the abstract concept of privacy but also to make changes to the submission guidelines for authors. We hope that our analysis contributes to the governance of ethical AIs and AI ethics on handling sensitive aspects of online activities.

After analyzing almost all programs pertaining to winning complete information games, game study started to focus on the challenge of programming acceptable game players. A key factor required to create an acceptable player agent is the knowledge of the user's internal state. People like those who want to know themselves, especially those who want to know their unconscious self-state, also called the "blind self." This study proposes an approach to analyze an agent's ability for estimating a user's blind self as an improvement in human-agent interaction. The authors chose a card game called Hanabi as an evaluation of this type of recursive intelligence. Hanabi is a cooperative and an incomplete information card game in which each player's cards are unknown to other players. A player decides whether to build a set of cards or discard them while providing hints to the other players. Previous research has demonstrated that the imitation of human behavior that corrects incomplete information increases the score in a Hanabi game between agents. The authors evaluated the agent's function to modify incomplete information based on the behavior of the players in the game between a human and an agent. The authors experimented with humans and two types of agents. The latter differed according to the need to imitate and modify incomplete information as a cooperator among the experiment's participants. Afterward, the game results were analyzed, and the impressions of the participants were evaluated. The results demonstrated that while the ability of estimation of the blind self is ineffective for increasing the score, the user developed a good impression of the agent when incomplete information was modified properly, resulting in a similar feeling in the case of a human collaborator.

The authors investigated the effect of gaze tracking by agent for human. Psychological study has shown that presence of others facilitates efforts of working partner. This effect also occurs if the presence of others replaced to robot. Furthermore, previous research shows that the effects on a person being touched by a robot to motivate him or her. However, direct contact such as touch with robot has a risk of disturbing human work. The authors use gaze tracking for social facilitation, because gaze tracking can also facilitate human efforts. The authors implemented social facilitation robot agent by using gaze tracking. The agent projects its face on the surface to show quickly changing expression which is difficult for achieve by ordinally robots. The agent also can express gaze tracking by implemented eye trackers. The authors prepared three conditions with monotonous task for comparing the effect of gaze tracking, first: the agent gazes the aim of task, second: the agent moves its gaze randomly, third: the agent traces the gaze point of participant. The result showed that the participant raise motivation if the agent traces gazed point by human, even though there are no the different on achievement score of task and continuation time.

“Are you a werewolf?” is one of the most popular communication games and is played globally. The AIWolf Project developed an agent, named “the AIWolf,” that can play “Are you a werewolf?”. An AIWolf utters its thoughts using an AIWolf Protocol. As it is difficult for humans to understand the AIWolf Protocol, translation into natural language is required when human players are involved. However, the conventional method of translation uses a word-to-word method, creating the impression that the utterances have been generated by a machine. This study aimed make the utterances of AIWolf sound more human. The authors set the target that a human player would be unable to distinguish human speech from that generated by AIWolves (the Turing test). The authors define the situation as the maximum value of humanity. The output of translated AIWolf Protocol was paraphrased using data from Werewolf BBS Logs. This study considers making the utterances of AIWolf sound more human using Werewolf BBS Logs and a possibility assignment equation with fuzzy sets. In this paper, an experiment was conducted to confirm whether paraphrasing the utterances of AIWolf using Werewolf BBS Logs for human-like speech is useful or not. It was shown that the experimental method produced slightly more human-like speech than the conventional method.

With the progress in several technologies, robots have been developed for educational support. However, these educational robots have a problem that children gradually lose their motivation for learning as they get used to interacting with the robots. To solve the problem of maintaining interest among children, the authors propose a new interaction method with the agent (user-generated agent:UGA) for an educational system with robots, in which children themselves design the contents of the agent. With the theme of introducing recommended books based on actual educational approaches, we construct a UGA system with an agent interposed between the child creator and the child listener, and conduct field research at an elementary school. The results reveal that the robot introduced books 17.9 times per day on average, the children took actions to pick up books after receiving introductions, and introduction methods with non-verbal expressions were effective. The UGA designer was not used much in the early stages of the research. The authors improved the UGA designer so that children designed four new items of content despite a short period. It is important to hide the name of the child who created the content in a method that allows children to design.

Due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, discussions are progressing on how robots could replace human labor. Conventional surveys have suggested that human labor is expected to gradually be replaced as tasks become automated. We conducted a survey at the world's first robot hotel recently opened in Japan - called a Henn-na hotel (“strange/change hotel”) in Japanese - which already uses robots for most of the work. We discovered that human labor is divided into small tasks, and that robot actions affect human emotional control. However, the hotel not only divides human work but also reconstructs it from tasks. Moreover, the purpose of reconstruction is not simply for replacement of works. Such modification of task is often observed taking place in humansystem interactions. It is an extremely creative process of labor emerging in this area.

The authors propose a new telepresence robot that merges the behaviors of two users and realizes behavior synchrony automatically. Our telepresence robot synchronizes facial expressions, gaze, face orientation, and neck inclination to its client users. The robot exhibited behavior synchrony that gave the client user a feeling that he/she got consent from the remote user. We investigated how behavior synchrony for client partner improves the interactions of the telepresence robot, and examined how this system improves the quality of telepresence. Our evaluation indicates that effect of the synchrony exhibited by a telepresence robot increases the feeling of consent during a discussion.

Nowadays, physical and intellectual labor can be substituted by robotics and information technology. However, emotional labor, which causes mental stress to the workers, has not been substituted yet. Therefore, we propose a method called emotional cyborg that substitutes human-emotional representation with the use of attachable devices. In this study, we used AgencyGlass, a device that substitutes the function of human eyes. We conducted a preliminary study to measure the task-processing time and the subject's cognitive load during the use of AgencyGlass. The result suggests that the AgencyGlass can perform joint attention similar to humans; however, its attentional shift is weaker than in humans.

School libraries are required to promote the habit of reading books in elementary school children. It is necessary to cultivate children's interest in books to achieve this goal. In this paper, we propose a user-generated agent (UGA) that introduces books. Elementary school children can program the behavior of the UGA themselves. The UGA not only cultivates the children's interest in the book introduced by the agent, but also their motivation for the presentation by allowing them to design the contents of the agent. We promote the habit of reading by allowing the children to modify the agent's design and giving them the opportunity to refine their ability to promote books.

In face-to-face communication, eye gaze is integral to a conversation to supplement verbal language. The sighted often uses eye gaze to convey nonverbal information in social interactions, which a blind conversation partner cannot access and react to them. In this paper, we present E-Gaze glasses (E-Gaze), an assistive device based on an eye tracking system. It simulates gaze for the blind person to react and engage the sighted in face-to-face conversations. It is designed based on a model that combines eye-contact mechanism and turn-taking strategy. We further propose an experimental design to test the E-Gaze and hypothesize that the model-driven gaze simulation can enhance the conversation quality between the sighted and the blind person in face-to-face communication.

Gaze and eye contact are frequently in social occasions used among sighted people. Gaze is considered as a predictor of attention and engagement between interlocutors in conversations. However, gaze signals from the sighted are not accessible for the blind person in face-to-face communication. In this paper, we present functional work-in-progress prototype, E-Gaze glasses, an assistive device based on an eye tracking system. E-Gaze simulates natural gaze for blind people, especially establishing the "eye contact" between blind and sighted people to enhance their engagement in face-to-face conversations. The gaze behavior is designed based on a turn-taking model, which interprets the corresponding relationship between the conclusive gaze behavior and the interlocutors' conversation flow.

In this research, we target at the interactive communication game “werewolf” with a subject of research. Werewolf is a popular party game all over the world, and the relevance studies have been advanced in recent years. However, the life-like agent who does werewolf has not been developed. Therefore the purpose of this research is to analyze non-verbal information from movies which play the werewolf with face-to-face communication and to make clear the impression for others by the movements of players in the game. Moreover, we verify whether the life-like agent gives an impression like human in werewolf game by mounting the movements on a life-like agent.

A demand response method is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and make stable power supply. A demand control depends on electric power suppliers' intention in many cases and therefore users are forced to be inconvenient in their way of life. We now need to develop an innovative method which encourages users to participate in a demand response and electric power saving action without their patience. Usually, the electric power saving behaviors are motivated by pecuniary incentives or environmental concern such as carbon dioxide emissions reduction and power failure probability. On such background, this paper evaluates the effectiveness of the attempt to encourage people's engagement in electric power saving action with the method of presenting information such as numeral, visualized, and anthropomorphized information regarding pecuniary incentives and environmental concern. The result shows that the method of presenting anthropomorphized information strongly induced users' electric power saving behaviors than other methods.

An office appliance, such as a multi-function printer (MFP) that combines a printer, copy machine, scanner, and facsimile, requires users to simultaneously learn both the manipulation of real-world objects and their abstract representation in a virtual world. Although many MFPs are provided in most offices and stores, their services are often not fully utilized because users deem their features too difficult to understand. We therefore propose a 'transitional explainer,' an agent that instructs users about the features of MFPs by mixing real- and virtual-world representations. Blended reality has been proposed as part of augmented reality. It involves the blending of virtual and real expressions to leverage their combined advantages. In this study, we utilize the advantages of blended reality to show users how to operate complex appliances by extending anthropomorphized explanations. A self-explanatory style is used by the appliance itself to improve the user's ability to remember features and enhance the motivation of all users, especially older ones, to learn the functions. With this system, users interact with the transitional agent and thereby learn how to use the MFP. The agent hides its real eyes and arms in onscreen mode, and extends them in real-world mode. We implemented the transitional explainer for realizing the blended reality agent in the MFP. In addition, we evaluated how this transitional expression supports users' understanding of how to manipulate the MFP and enhances users' motivation to use it.

Gaze signals are frequently used by the sighted in social interactions as visual cues. However, these signals and cues are hardly accessible for people with visual disability. A conceptual design of E-Gaze glasses is proposed, assistive to create gaze communication between blind and sighted people in face-to-face conversations. We interviewed 20 totally blind and low vision participants to envision the use of the E-Gaze. We explained four features of E-Gaze to participants using persona and use scenarios. Participants discussed the features on their usefulness, efficiency and interest. The results helped us clarify the design direction and further research.

Children suffering with learning and developmental disorders require daily training to develop their social skills. However, such daily training is sometimes not provided because it requires interactive help from therapists, and lots of special programs required for the training. We proposed an immersive digital dollhouse that enhances traditional psychological play therapy with sensors installed, while provides feedback from the sensors to the computer graphics (CG). The immersive digital dollhouse provides an immersive space for children, which develops their communication skills through their imaginary play with the complement of CG for enhancing the understanding of their situation, and it is easy to use in their home as daily training. We conducted an experiment with a 6-year old child with a similar level as the older children with developmental disorders. We found that the number of reactions was twice as many as with a normal dollhouse, and the number of miscommunications was less than one-tenth.

Autonomous agents and/or robot embodiments are frequently introduced to a complex system in expectation of eliciting user behavior similar to human-human interaction with the target system. The current study examines the process and factors involved in this type of interaction. As a first step, we conducted a psychological experiment to examine animacy perception of the agent and its effects on user interaction with the system, here a microwave oven, comparing among three conditions: an embodied condition (with anthropomorphic robot features called agent triggers), a voice agent condition, and a control condition (no-agent condition). Additionally, we investigated differences between responses by age groups. Results showed two types of animacy, lifelikeness and intelligence; older and younger adults responded quite differently to the two agents conditions, which indicated that older adults placed more values on embodied agents. Hypothetical models of animacy perception in younger and older adults and their behaviors in interaction with the system implied the importance of perceived individuality of an agent and background knowledge an agent's function and abilities.

Werewolf is one of the popular communication games all over the world. It treats ambiguity of human discussion including the utterances, gestures and facial expressions in a broad sense. In this research, we pay attention to this imperfect information game werewolf. The purpose of the research is to develop an intelligent agent “AI werewolf” which is enabled to naturally play werewolf with human. This paper aims to investigate how behavior contribute to victory of own-side players by using machine learning as a first step. As the results of investigation and analysis of the playing movie, we found that nonverbal information in the game of werewolf has importance to winning or losing the game.

"Are You a Werewolf?" is a conversation type game. We construct a Werewolf match system for humans with lifelike agents. We evaluate whether it is possible to realize conversation space of "Are You a Werewolf?" with the system.

The author proposes the notion of an emotional cyborg as a new application proposal in the human-agent interaction (HAI) field. This paper is a summary of what kind of human processes maintain emotional labor and how such kind of social labor is supported by HAI technologies. The author implemented AgencyGlass, a prototype application, as a tool for realizing an emotional cyborg. The device is attached on a user's face and displays the user's eye gestures. The author created a prototype application for supplementing emotional labor with AgencyGlass and presented this as a video. Reactions from media and online feedback on the prototype are analyzed, and the future of HAI applications is illustrated.

Children who are suffering on learning and developmental disabilities require daily trainings for social skills. However, such daily training is not provided occasionally because it requires interactive helps from therapists. In this paper, we propose a digital dollhouse that enhanced traditional psychological play therapy with digital sensors and computer graphics. The digital dollhouse provides immersive space to children which grows children's communication skill through their imaging play. This device allows non-professional like parents to make play therapy. In this paper, we show details about prototype of digital dollhouse. We also categorize requirements for digital play therapy that are given by psychological viewpoints based on the prototype. Interdisciplinary design process collaborating with engineers and psychologists shows the possibility that digital dollhouse is enough to enhance empathy of children and such empathy will be enhanced by creating immersive characters.

The author developed wearable eyeglasses robot that supports user's emotional labors. The glass displays user's eye gestures on the surface and produces expressions during user's communication.

FlashTouch is a new technology that enables data communication between touchscreen-based mobile devices and digital peripheral devices. Touchscreen can be used as communication media using visible light and capacitive touch. In this paper, we designed a stylus prototype to describe the concept of FlashTouch. With this prototype, users can easily transfer data from one mobile device to another. It eliminates the complexity associated with data sharing among mobile users, which is currently achieved by online data sharing services or wireless connections for data sharing that need a pairing operation to establish connections between devices. Therefore, it can prove to be of particular significance to people who are not adept at current software services and hardware functions. Finally, we demonstrate the valuable applications in online settlements via mobile device, and data communication for mobile robots.

This paper proposes a blended reality agent, called BReA, whose body presents and transfers itself between real and virtual environments. BReA can communicate with people through not only real-world communication but also virtual communication. Recent research studies have shown the merits and demerits of communication with robotic agents under a real-world environment, and on-screen agents in a virtual world. BReA, whose body can be located in both real and virtual worlds, possesses the merits of both robotic and on-screen agents. In addition, the feature through which BReA communicates with people in real and virtual environments allows users to acknowledge real-world objects based on its references from a virtual environment. We conducted a field test in a supermarket to confirm whether customers can engage themselves in communication with BReA. An analysis of the consumer reactions confirmed that customers definitely recognized that the directions of the pointing gestures performed by BReA in a virtual environment were oriented outside of the display. Moreover, we observed some customers approaching closer to BReA as it transferred from a real environment into a virtual world. These results demonstrated that BReA succeeds in immersing customers in its presentation.

This paper proposes a wearable avatar named TEROOS, which is mounted on a person's shoulder. TEROOS allows the users who wear it and control it to share a vision remotely. Moreover, the avatar has an anthropomorphic face that enables the user who controls it to communicate with people co-located with the user who wears it. We have a field test by using TEROOS and observed that the wearable avatar innovatively assisted the users to communicate during their joint activities such as route navigating and buying goods at a shop. The user controlling TEROOS could give the user wearing it appropriate route instructions on the basis of the situation around TEROOS. In addition, both users could easily identify objects that they discussed. Moreover, shop staff members communicated with the user controlling TEROOS and behaved as they normally would when the user asked questions about the goods.

The Turing test is an imitation game for determining the intelligence of an agent. In spite of its simplified setting, the use of natural language between two agents in the test is still too high a hurdle for achieving fruitful results in the field of artificial intelligence. In this paper, the authors propose a variation of the Turing test with a restricted communication method. This modified test uses behaviors generated by two-axis actuators for communication instead of the natural language dialogue used in the normal Turing test. This reduction of scope reveals what kinds of features are essential for an imitation game, and broaden the application brought by Turing test. When we learn what sorts of communication become possible with restricted actuation, we can apply this knowledge to any kind of robot or device in the real world. First, we tried to determine what elements are critical for communication between a user and a robot through a preliminary experiment involving human-human communication. A human manipulator received a video image as input and controlled a "robot box" with two actuators in a way that would lead a user to put other objects into the box. The results indicated what kinds of behavior are required to show the intention of the manipulator to the user. Second, we analyzed the result of the preliminary experiment, organized a behavioral model from the result, and programmed the robot box to run the model. The behavior of the robot was programmed according to the user's head and hand locations as identified by a motion captures system. The robot automatically interact with a human without human manipulation with this program. Third, we conducted a behavioral Turing test in a communication task whereby the human collected items according to the instructions of the robot box. In this test, two actuators on the box is controlled both by human manipulator and our program. The answers of users suggests that the users could not identify which is controlled by a human manipulator or the program. This result indicates that the Turing test succeed in a restricted behavioral level.

We present the iRing, an intelligent input ring device developed for measuring finger gestures and external input. iRing recognizes rotation, finger bending, and external force via an infrared (IR) reflection sensor that leverages skin characteristics such as reflectance and softness. Furthermore, iRing allows using a push and stroke input method, which is popular in touch displays. The ring design has potential to be used as a wearable controller because its accessory shape is socially acceptable, easy to install, and safe, and iRing does not require extra devices. We present examples of iRing applications and discuss its validity as an inexpensive wearable interface and as a human sensing device.

This paper proposes a direct anthropomorphization method to improve interaction between human and an agent. In this method, an artifact is converted into an agent by attaching humanoid parts to it. There have been many studies that have provided valu

The 2011 HRI Pioneers Workshop will be conducted in conjunction with the 2011 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The 2011 HRI Pioneers Workshop will provide a forum for graduate students and postdocs to learn about the current state of HRI, to present their work and to network with one another and with select senior researchers in a setting that is less formal and more interactive than the main conference. Workshop participants will discuss important issues and open challenges in the field, encouraging the formation of collaborative relationships across disciplines and geographic boundaries.

Auditory instruction is a well used method for people of all ages because of its understandability. However the additional voice has the possibility to disturb the user's learning during the instruction because it strongly implies the support of third-person helpers. This risk increases with older people because their confidence in their ability may decline compared to the younger people. The authors propose a method to anthropomorphize an instructed target (a vacuum) to decrease the feeling of a third person during instruction. The authors conducted the experiment using our method to explain features of household appliance and evaluated the relationship between recalled features and older people's internal scale. The results show that older people remembered more features by using our method, and with female participants, their internal scales increased during the training. This demonstrates that our method can decrease the third-person feeling in female participants and increase the amount learned. Our findings suggest that auditory instructions may be an effective learning method for older adults.

In this study, we propose a disembodied real-world agent and the study of the influence of this disembodiment on the social separation between the user and the agent. In order to give a clue to the user about the presence of the robot and to make possible a visual feedback, we decide to use independent robotic body parts that mimic human hands and eyes. This robot is also able to share real-world space with the user, and react to his presence, through 3d detection and oral communication. Thus, we can obtain an agent with an important presence while keeping good space efficiency, and as a result ban any existing social barrier.

An unobtrusive measurement tool is important for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research that does not want to attach markers or devices on the experiment subjects. This property allows a natural observation of interaction between human and robot during the experiment. In HRI, an experiment that involves with psychological evaluation usually requires physical measurement for evaluating the interaction, for instance, distance, direction, and approaching speed between human and robot. Low-profile Evaluation System (LES) is an ongoing work in creating an unobtrusive measurement tool for HRI research that provides 3D video recording, playback and measurement inside 3D scene in real-time. LES is designed to operate on a single computer to make setup and experiment outside laboratory environment easier. The demonstration in the real-word setup shows that LES provides acceptable 3D measurement accuracy for HRI research.

Unpredictable user behaviors in a physical process represent one of the fundamental obstacles to the realization of a Cyber-Physical System. In this paper, we propose the use of social cues such as body shape, expressions, and verbal timing to control user behaviors in the physical world. Social cues can control user behaviors in both their spatial and temporal aspects. As a result, user actions become more predictable in a CPS. We consider how social cues restrict user behaviors by referring to a number of psychological, cognitive, and human-robot interaction studies, and we propose a model of restriction based on social cues. Using this model, we created hardware and software in order to realize attachable social cues, and we seek to demonstrate the effect of social cues using the example of home appliances.

In this study, we investigated the boundary for recognizing robots. Many anthropomorphic robots are used for interactions with users. These robots show various body forms and appearances, which are recognized by their users. This ability to recognize a variety of robotic appearances suggests that a user can recognize a wide range of imaginary body forms compared with the native human appearance. We attempted to determine the boundary for the recognition of robot appearances. On the basis of our previous studies, we hypothesized that the discrimination of robot appearances depends of the order of the parts. If the body parts of a robot are placed in order from top to bottom, the user can recognize the assembly as a robot body. We performed a human-robot experiment in which we compared the results for robots with ordered parts with those for robots with inverted parts. The result showed that the users' perception of the robot's body differed between the two groups. This result confirms our hypothesized boundary for the recognition of robot appearances.

Today's household appliances are quickly increasing their features and functions. These new technologies require innovative training methods to maintain learning motivation especially with older users, because they may need more time to learn. Conventional manuals are insufficient to maintain motivation in this population. Previously studied assistive communication robots also have difficulty explaining a second device because their strong presence distracts the user from the device during explanation. We propose an anthropomorphized learning method that sustains older people's motivations to learn new technologies. Our method creates an anthropomorphized household appliance using robot eyes and arms. This method assists the learning process using human expressions. These human-like expressions attract users during training and maintain learning motivation. Our system uses three forms of anthropomorphization: pointing, directive motion, and emotion. We designed and implemented both hardware and software and evaluated the method by training older people to learn a vacuum's features. Our method increased older people's emotional status by an average of 2.53 points compared with the manual learning that decreased emotional status by −.53. This increased emotional status suggests that our system could maintain older users' motivation more effectively compared with traditional manual methods.

Dialogue interface with voice is one of the common methods of interaction between a user and a machine. This interface is believed to be easy for all people because auditory information doesn't require additional knowledge from users. However, having only auditory instructions sometimes causes misinterpretation of spatial information like locations and directions. This risk becomes large, especially with older people, because users' mental abilities to manipulate images or patterns decrease with age. We support older people's learning of spatial information by using an attachable gesture robot. Our robot consists of human-like eyes and arms and is attached to the object. It supports older people's mental manipulation of space with gestures during voice interaction. We designed and implemented both hardware and software on a vacuum robot and evaluated the method by training older people to learn its features. We compared two instructional methods that explained eight features on the vacuum, one method with voice and gestures and one with only voice. The results show that the subjects were more likely to remember two features if given training with gestures. We also found that their learning motivation was increased when given voice and gesturing instructional methods.

In this article, we propose a model for the addition of user information to sensor data. The problem is that it is difficult to identify a user of objects that are used by multiple people and to define a unique way to identify the user. The proposed model identifies the user assuming that the objects are used by multiple people. Further, it introduces three policies. By our experiment, we have proved the following: (1) Addition of user information to sensor data by the model is valid. (2) By presenting a difference in policies, it is possible to draw someone's attention.

We propose a portable robot named "Blog Robot" which presents blog contents by using verbal and non-verbal expression. Blog Robot is a robotized smart-phone which has a head and arms for making hand gestures, eye contact, and joint attention. The blog is widely used to express personal views or to record daily occurrences. One of the information frequently posted on the blog is related to a certain place such as a tourist site or a shop. Meanwhile, people sit down in front of their PC and check blogs through the text and the image displayed on the Web browser. However, their style of checking the blogs is not good way for them to realize the authentic situations which blog writers let them know. The user carries Blog Robot like cellular phone and can browse blogs related to the location where user is. The browse method makes the user access the blog at the real scene related to the contents of the blog. Blog Robot gives her/him the content of the blog by reading it with synthesized speech. In particular, the nonverbal information generated by Blog Robot enhances the read information as if the blog writer is next her/him while telling her/him it. The browse method is expected to enable the user to obtain more realistic information than the Web browser on the PC.

With this video, we propose a new human-robot interaction that anthropomorphizes a target common object and transform it into a communicative agent using attachable humanoid parts. The user perceives the target to have its own intentions and body image through the attached body parts. This video shows examples of anthropomorphization method as below.

In this paper, we propose new robotics presentation method called, Self Introducing Poster that uses attachable humanoid parts and explains its contents through a self introduction style. Presentation by a conventional robot sometimes fails because the robot presenter is often too attractive and distracts from the presentation itself. In our method, the poster is anthropomorphized and explains its contents. Due to this self presentation, users can more easily understand its meaning because the information's contents and information provider are strongly related. We designed and implemented our system and evaluated it in the field. The results suggest that the self-introducing system is useful for gaining users attention and effectively presenting information.

This study investigated the effects of a method of anthropomorphizing a target space using attachable robotic human parts. As a result of this method, users may perceive a space as having lifelike characteristics and may accept a virtual body image for various objects. We developed robotic human parts to evaluate our method and conducted an experiment in which subjects positioned objects according to instructions given within an anthropomorphic space to determine their acceptance of the virtual body images presented and the anthropomorphic representation of the space. The results showed that subjects’ positioning of objects changed according to the position of the human parts. We found that our method successfully generated a virtual body image for a particular region that would not normally be recognized in this way by users.

We propose a "display robot" that directly anthropomorphizes objects using body parts that are like those of humans. It is constructed of devices that look like eyes and arms. It anthropomorphizes objects according to the places they are located at or the situations they are in, and this increases their subjectivity and their virtual body image. The display robot enables users to accept the body images of objects and communicate smoothly with them. We assessed user evaluations of the display robot in an exhibition space and in this paper we discuss the effect of anthropomorphization achieved by these devices.

This study proposes a system named "displaying robot" which anthropomorphize an environmental object. Although there are many studies on anthropomorphic agents to communicate with humans about an environmental object, a communication becomes irritating because we need to communicate with agents additionally. On the other hand, displaying robot is attachable device which imitates human body parts for anthropomorphization. Since displaying robot anthropomorphizes an environmental object itself, it can conduct task-related communication without additional anthropomorphic agents. We design one of the displaying robots using two eyes, named "Iris-board" which is attached to home appliances or furniture. We conducted an experiment to verify the effectiveness of a body image with attaching Iris-board to a home appliance. The result indicated that there is a significant difference between anthropomorphized home appliance and normal home appliance