Research on an eye-contact-type dialogue robot

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To investigate the role of gaze in dialogue, we developed an eye-contact-type dialogue equipment, and analyzed how the gaze is used in a real dialogue. Next, we conducted an "niramekko" experiment to investigate the method people use for detecting the direction of gaze, and ultimately detecting the eye-contact state. We found that the eye-contact is not a simple physical phenomenon as it was regarded so far, but a psychological phenomenon.As to the development of the eye-contact robot, a robot hardware that has a gaze manipulation speed comparable to that of humans is realized. The robot is controlled by a PC through serial port, and implementing appropriate software various experiment can be conducted. With this robot, Kozima focuses the research on development of communications, and Ito focuses the role of gaze manipulation in dialogues. As to the former research, it is used for an experiment in developmental psychology. As to the latter, the robot now can detect and follow the human gaze, and the dialogue experiment between human subject and the robot is conducted. In a preliminary experiment an interesting behaviors on the human side are observed, but need a more detailed examination. The research for these is just started, and experiment is actively conducted.Concurrently, we investigated theoretically the algorithm to read other's mind, and architecture for a robot with a mind, that constitute a research background of this project.