You're Wigging Me Out!

With their ability to embody users in physically distant spaces, telepresence robots have gained popularity in environments including hospitals, schools, and offices. However, with platforms lacking in individuation and social presence, users often personalize telepresence robots with clothing and accessories to increase their recognizability and sense of embodiment. Toward understanding personalization preferences, as well as perceptions of personalized platforms, we conducted a series of five studies that investigate patterns in personalization of a telepresence robot and evaluate the impacts of common personalizations along five dimensions (robot uniqueness, humanness, pleasantness/unpleasantness, and people's willingness to interact with it). Finding a strong preference for the use of clothing and headwear in Studies 1-2 (N=52), we systematically manipulated a robot's appearance using these items and evaluated the qualitative and quantitative impacts on observer perceptions in Studies 3-4 (N=160). Observing that personalization increased perceptions of uniqueness and humanness, but also decreased positive responding, we then investigated the associations between personalization preferences and perceptions via a fifth study (N=100). Across the five studies, tensions emerged between operators' interest in using wigs and interlocutors' dislike of wigs. This result highlights a need to consider both operator and interlocutor perspectives when personalizing telepresence robots.