Emotional Robocoaster: An Exploration On Emotions, Research Methods And Introspection

The Emotional Robocoaster is an emotions-based game played between a human and a robot. The interaction utilizes game techniques and the social presence a robot can project in order to explore mechanisms for introspection and human emotion elicitation. The game challenges players to use affect inputs to bring a social robot to a given target emotion using biometric signals, and uses this as an opportunity to promote human-robot collaboration. This work reports an ongoing effort in (1) exploring the potential of robot companions as partners for behavioral tasks such as emotion elicitation and, (2) the use of game techniques as viable mechanisms for engaging humans in introspection. This exploration can provide designers and behavioral researchers with insight about new ways to approach research methods in the fields of psychology, in particular human emotions, as well as research at the intersection of social robots, human introspection, mindfulness and self-awareness.