Welcome to the SERA project website

SERA Résumé and Showcase

The project SERA (Social Engagement with Robots and Agents) has ended in December 2010, after two years. Its aim was to advance science in the field of social acceptability of verbally interactive robots and agents, with a view to their applications especially in assistive technologies (companions, virtual butlers). To this aim, the project has undertaken a field study in three iterations to collect data of real-life, long-term and open-ended relationships of subjects with robotic devices. The three iterations tested different conditions (functionalities) of the equipment which consisted of a computer, sensors and a simple robotic device (the Nabaztag) as the front-end for conversational interaction. The scenario of the field study was based on health- and fitness-related applications. The companion was installed in the test participants' homes and left there for about ten days in each iteration. The project collected roughly 300 video sequences of interactions in the field study. This video - acted, but using the actual setup - demonstrates the interactions centering on the person's physical activity.

"Social Engagement with Robots and Agents" really happens, we can conclude from our data. Despite the limited capabilities of the experimental companion, some of the participants in the field study talked with it. A talking device with some "face" is a strong incentive to take what we call a "conversational stance" toward it. This stance is both a research challenge and a social obligation: it has to be mirrored by socially adequate conversational behaviour on the companion's side, and complemented by non-social interaction modalities that leave the users free to operate a companion in the way they wish. The most striking feature of the data is indeed the diversity of ways in which people interact with and relate to the companion.

A further challenge for research is the relevance that participants attributed to the (few) additional functions and services provided (weather report, messages). We deduce that perceived usefulness is key to user satisfaction with companions, and at least as relevant as dedicated social-relational capabilities (e.g. affect recognition and expression). Services that are considered helpful and/or entertaining play an important role in increasing the user's esteem of and building a permanent relationship with the companion. Therefore, such functions (e.g. information tailored to the user's needs, support of social networking) are not just "nice" add-ons to a companion's central health- and safety-related tasks, but vital ingredients for the acceptance and the success of such services.

Drawing on observations from the field study and on extensive analysis of existing system architectures, a reference architecture has been developed. The interactive SERA showcase includes an exemplary application built on one implementation of this reference architecture. This exemplar is specifically concerned with floor management, an issue that has turned out to be of high relevance to the mixed application domains of assistive companions: while some persons tend to use the companion strictly in their intended way, the robot still may have its own agenda (e.g. of reminders, advice, or encouragement) to follow. These divergent interests have to be reconciled in a socially acceptable way. The proposed solution is an architecture that models the interplay between management of dialog and intentions.

If you want to get in touch ...

Please contact: Sabine Payr, OFAI, Freyung 6/6, A-1010 Vienna, Austria (coordinator)