Affective Robot Story-telling Human-Robot Interaction: Exploratory Real-time Emotion Estimation Analysis using Facial Expressions and Physiological Signals

Affective human-robot interaction is still an active area of research in part due to the great advances in artificial intelligence. Now, the design of autonomous devices that work in real therapeutic environments has become a plausible reality. Affective human-robot interaction requires a robot to analyze the emotional state of the human interlocutor and interpret emotional responses that can be used, not merely in the interaction but, for example, to provoke desired therapeutic responses. It is, therefore, necessary to broaden experimental techniques into more realistic paradigms, where the capacity of emotion estimation can be completely explored. This exploratory paper proposes a realistic experimental paradigm in which the robot employs a dramatic story to evoke emotions in the users, and tests previously self-designed methodologies to be able to make estimates of the users’ emotional state in real-time. Regardless of the multiple impediments and restrictions, and all the aspects that could still be improved, this paper can outline the feasibility of the proposed methodology in realistic scenarios.