Towards a model of emotion expression in an interactive robot head

In this paper we present a robotic head designed for interaction with humans, endowed with mechanisms to make the robot respond to social interaction with emotional expressions, allowing the emotional expression of the robot to be directly influenced by the social interaction process. We look into how emotionally expressive visual feedback from the robot can enrich the interaction process and provide the participant with additional information regarding the interaction, allowing the user to better understand the intentions of the robot. We discuss some of the interactions that are possible with ERWIN and how this can effect the response of the system. We show experimental scenarios where the interaction processes influences the emotional expressions and how the participants interpret this. We draw our conclusions from the feedback from experiments, showing that indeed emotional expression can have an influence on the social interaction between a robot and human.