Embodied Mediation in Group Ideation – A Gestural Robot Can Facilitate Consensus-Building

This paper explores how a gesture-based robot influences human-human interaction in group ideation. The robot was mounted on a whiteboard and responded with six different gestures (e.g., nodding, following speakers with gaze) to specific situations. We coded the participants’ interactions from videos and gathered their experience through post-session interviews. The most frequently invoked robot behavior was following the speaker with gaze. As a result, participants felt socio-emotionally supported and responded by moving the ideation ahead (individual level) and consensus-building (group level). In fact, the groups with the robot showed more consensus-building than the two reference groups without the robot. Participants had different views on the role of the robot in the group, such as active outsider, supportive group member, or assistant. The latter tried to use the robot as decision-support. All in all, to include a robot to mediate human groups seems a promising future application domain.