Effects of robotic companionship on music enjoyment and agent perception

We evaluate the effects of robotic listening companionship on people´s enjoyment of music, and on their perception of the robot. We present a robotic speaker device designed for joint listening and embodied performance of the music played on it. The robot generates smoothed real-time beat-synchronized dance moves, uses nonverbal gestures for common ground, and can make and maintain eye-contact. In an experimental between-subject study (n=67), participants listened to songs played on the speaker device, with the robot either moving in sync with the beat, moving off-beat, or not moving at all. We found that while the robot´s beat precision was not consciously detected by Ps, an on-beat robot positively affected song liking. There was no effect on overall experience enjoyment. In addition, the robot´s response caused Ps to attribute more positive human-like traits to the robot, as well as rate the robot as more similar to themselves. Notably, personal listening habits (solitary vs. social) affected agent attributions. This work points to a larger question, namely how a robot´s perceived response to an event might affect a human´s perception of the same event.