AI Meets Austen: Towards Human-Robot Discussions of Literary Metaphor
Table 1: Mode, median, 95% confidence interval, and p for each statement, for each session. For sessions 1, 2, and 3, n=26, n=18, and n=7, respectively.
['[BOLD] Statement', '[BOLD] Mode  [BOLD] 1', '[BOLD] Mode  [BOLD] 2', '[BOLD] Mode  [BOLD] 3', '[BOLD] Median  [BOLD] 1', '[BOLD] Median  [BOLD] 2', '[BOLD] Median  [BOLD] 3', '[BOLD] 95% C.I.  [BOLD] 1', '[BOLD] 95% C.I.  [BOLD] 2', '[BOLD] 95% C.I.  [BOLD] 3', '[ITALIC]  [BOLD] p  [BOLD] 1', '[ITALIC]  [BOLD] p  [BOLD] 2', '[ITALIC]  [BOLD] p  [BOLD] 3']
The system was implemented on a NAO robot named Grace, and we encoded contextual gestures and life-like swaying motions to facilitate natural interactions. We employed a Wizard-of-Oz speech recognition technique, but all other aspects of the system functioned autonomously. Twenty-six (12 M/14 F) participants completed one interaction session, 18 (9 M/9 F) additionally completed a second, and 7 (4 M/3 F) completed a third. The survey results, including the mode and median (ties broken by averaging) scores, the 95% confidence interval for each survey statement, and the p values resulting from a one sample t-test that compared the sample mean to an expected population mean of 3.0 (“Neither Agree All average scores expressed positive sentiment, and most differences between the average and the Likert scale midpoint (3.0) were statistically significant. The results establish that adults are receptive to an embodied lifelong learning companion, persistently rating it as both likeable and engaging. No sharp reductions in scores were observed over repeated sessions, which may suggest that the interactions are engaging enough to appeal to users for regular use.