Referential practices. Effects of a museum guide robot suggesting a deictic ‘repair’ action to visitors attempting to orient to an exhibit

Abstract

An autonomous robot system was equipped with basic means to monitor the users' success/failure in following a robot's verbal-gestural deictic reference to an object and - in case of problems - to provide additional help, i.e. to suggest a `repair' action. A real-world field trial with the robot acting as museum guide constitutes the basis for analysis of the users' reactions to the first reference and the subsequent `repair' action in two structurally different conditions. Results indicate that deictic `repair' actions are mostly successful helping users to correctly orient, but they may also lead to confusion for initially correctly oriented visitors in situations of small groups of users. A recurring user practice is revealed which consists of displaying to co-visitors their understanding of the reference by pointing to the location and thus providing additional orientational help.