How can a tour guide robot’s orientation influence visitors’ orientation and formations?

In this paper, we describe a field study with a tour guide robot that guided visitors through a historical site. Our focus was to determine how a robot’s orientation behaviour influenced visitors’ orientation and the formations groups of visitors formed around the robot. During the study a remotecontrolled robot gave short guided tours and explained some points of interest in the hall of Festivities in the Royal Alcazar in Seville (Spain). To get insight into visitors’ reactions to the robot’s non-verbal orientation behaviour, two orientations of the robot were tested; either the robot was oriented with its front towards the visitors, or the robot was oriented with its front towards the point of interest. From the study we learned that people reacted strongly to the orientation of the robot. We found that visitors tended to follow the robot tour guide from a greater distance (more than 3 meters away from the robot) more frequently when the robot was oriented towards the visitors than when it was oriented towards the point of interest. Further, when the robot was oriented towards the point of interest, people knew where to look and walked towards the robot more often. On the other hand, people also lost interest in the robot more often when it was oriented towards the point of interest. The analysis of visitors’ orientation and formations led to design guidelines for effective robot guide behaviour.