A case study on the effect of feedback on itinerary requests in human-robot interaction

A previously conducted study on human-human communication in the context of itinerary requests in public space resulted in “feedback” being the most powerful influencing factor regarding the successfulness of conversations between humans. In this paper, we report on a subsequently performed Wizard-of-Oz (WOz) experiment that applied the results from the human-human study to human-robot interaction. The participants interacted with a Nao robot in a cardboard model town, where the robot asked them for directions to a specific destination. It was the aim of this experiment to validate the importance of adequately timed feedback in human-robot communication. The experiment could show that feedback is a crucial factor for successful human-robot interaction in the context of asking for directions. Adequately timed and appropriately deployed feedback fosters a vivid and natural flow of communication.