You have full access to this open access article. Increasingly autonomous robots become more and more prevalent in daily life and their proximity to humans may affect human well-being and comfort. Consequently, researchers have begun to study the effect of robotic presence on humans and to establish distance rules. However, studies on human-robot proxemics rely on various concepts e.
The impact of using diverging operationalization has not been studied explicitly, thus the first aim of our research was to fill this gap. The second goal was to gain new insights into the influence of robot appearance on appropriate proximity. Using an ad-hoc created appropriateness scale we reveal that for robots displaying human faces on screens, closer distances are perceived to be appropriate.
Our study provides valuable insights into the relationship between measurement methods, robot appearance, and appropriateness, and offers practical recommendations for future research and development in the field of social robotics. Humans will encounter or even live together with increasingly autonomous robots in the years to come and the majority of human-robot encounters will take place without direct interaction e.
While the number of robots surges, it is imperative for humans to adapt to their presence [ 3 ]. In order to support this adaptation, robots should obey fundamental human rules of spatial behavior to integrate smoothly into societies still consisting of people that have no or limited prior exposure to robots. In environments where human-robot interactions occur in close physical proximity, such as in a hallway, adhering to these behavior rules is particularly important.
Therefore, in order to facilitate seamless integration of robots into human environments, it is crucial to understand human reactions to physical encounters with robots. This knowledge can then inform the programming of robotic motion behavior [ 4 ].
