Laughing at the robot: Incongruent robot actions as laughables

Abstract

Laughter is a common occurrence when people interact with social robots. Among the many reasons for the production of laughter, one phenomenon is when the robot responds inadequately and or in a contextually inappropriate manner to the ongoing interaction. This paper is grounded in studies from a semi-experimental setting in which course participants naturally interact with the humanoid robot Pepper in a Danish context. Building upon video recordings and ethnomethodological conversation analysis, the paper explores situations where the robot produces an action that somehow diverges from the expected trajectory of social actions and consequently establishes an incongruency. This research contributes to our understanding of the finetuned nature of human sociality and hence requirements for Human-Robot-Interaction.