Abstract
In this paper, we investigated how the choice of a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) interface affects communication with a robot from both the user's and the wizard's perspective. In a conversational setting, we used three WoZ interfaces with varying levels of dialogue input and output restrictions: a) a restricted perception GUI that showed fixed-view video and ASR transcripts and let the wizard trigger pre-scripted utterances and gestures; b) an unrestricted perception GUI that added real-time audio from the participant and the robot c) a VR telepresence interface that streamed immersive stereo video and audio to the wizard and forwarded the wizard's spontaneous speech, gaze and facial expressions to the robot. We found that the interaction mediated by the VR interface was preferred by users in terms of robot features and perceived social presence. For the wizards, the VR condition turned out to be the most demanding but elicited a higher social connection with the users. VR interface also induced the most connected interaction in terms of inter-speaker gaps and overlaps, while Restricted GUI induced the least connected flow and the largest silences. Given these results, we argue for more WoZ studies using telepresence interfaces. These studies better reflect the robots of tomorrow and offer a promising path to automation based on naturalistic contextualized verbal and non-verbal behavioral data.
Abstract (translated)
本文研究了绿野仙踪（WoZ）接口的选择如何从用户和操作者两个角度影响与机器人的交互。在对话场景中，我们使用了三种对话输入输出限制程度不同的WoZ接口：a）受限感知图形界面，显示固定视角视频和自动语音识别文本，允许操作者触发预设的言语和手势；b）无限制感知图形界面，在a基础上增加了参与者和机器人的实时音频；c）VR临场感接口，向操作者传输沉浸式立体视频和音频，并将操作者的自发言语、注视和面部表情转发给机器人。研究发现，经VR接口中介的交互在机器人特征和社会临场感方面更受用户青睐。对操作者而言，VR条件要求最高，却引发了与用户更强的社会联结。就说话者间隙与重叠而言，VR接口促成了最具联结感的交互，而受限图形界面则导致联结感最弱、静默时间最长。基于这些结果，我们主张更多采用临场感接口开展WoZ研究。这类研究能更好地反映未来机器人的形态，并为基于自然情境下言语与非言语行为数据的自动化路径提供前景。
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28338
