It is Up to You: A Personal Robot's Expression of Emotional Support and Regulation Based on Their User's Emotions

Abstract

Beyond presenting social cues, we propose that, given an appropriate response, social robots could further support peoples’ emotional needs. This work investigates the implementation of four psychological mechanisms traditionally used to facilitate Emotional Support: Affective and Cognitive Empathy, Positive Emotion Regulation, and yoU-turn in a personal robot. Each mechanism was examined as the robot’s emotional response to a user’s emotional state. In an online study (N=95), participants recollected situations where they experienced six distinct emotional states; then they ranked their preferred robot response per state. Results show that people’s preferred responses depended on their emotional state’s valence. We further found that each mechanism was preferred for at least one emotional state, emphasizing the need for social robots to provide a range of responses to support users. This work contributes to the field of human-robot interaction by implementing validated psychological mechanisms into a robotic system as its emotional responses.

Keywords: Emotions, Support, Emotional Regulation, Robot, Drone, Social Robot