| dc.description.abstract | A relationship is something that is necessarily built up over time, however,
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) trials are rarely extended beyond a single ses-
sion. These studies are insufficient for examining multi-interaction scenarios,
which will become commonplace if the robot is situated in a workplace or adopts
a role that is part of a human's routine. Long term studies that have been exe-
cuted often demonstrate a declining novelty effect. Music, however, provides an
opportunity for affective engagement, shared creativity, and social activity. This
being said, it is unlikely that a robot best equipped to build sustainable and
meaningful relationships with humans will be one that can solely play music. In
their day-to-day lives, most humans encounter machines and computer programs
capable of executing impressively complex tasks to a high standard that may
provide them with hours of engagement. In order to have anything that that
could be classed as a social relationship, the human must have the sense that
their interactions are taking place with another, a phenomenon known as social
presence. In this thesis, we examine whether the addition of simulated social
behaviours will improve a sense of believability or social presence, which, along
with an engaging musical interaction, will allow us to move towards something
that could be called a human-robot relationship. First, we conducted a large
online survey to gain insight into relationships based in regular music activ-
ity. Using these results, we designed, constructed and programmed Mortimer,
a robotic system capable of playing the drums and a responsive composition
algorithm to best meet these aims. This robot was then used in a series of
studies, one single session and two long-term, testing various simulated social
behaviours to compliment the musical improvisation. These experiments and
their results address the paucity of long-term studies both speci cally in Social
Robotics and in the broader HRI eld, and provide a promising insight into a
possible solution to generally poor outcomes in this area. This conclusion is
based upon the model of a positive human-robot relationship and the method-
ological approach of automated behavioural metrics to evaluate robotic systems
in this regard developed and detailed within the thesis. | en_US |
