Gentle and Balanced Facilitation with Multiple Robots

Abstract

For participants in a discussion to reach a decision that everyone agrees on, it is important that everyone speaks actively and that diverse viewpoints are reflected. A facilitator is often placed to equalize speaking opportunities and provide an environment where people can speak comfortably, but weak facilitation leads to biased speaking opportunities while overly strong facilitation makes it harder for participants to speak freely. To address this, this study proposes "moderate facilitation," which balances equal speaking opportunities with ease of speaking, using a tabletop robot that approaches participants to gently encourage them to speak without disrupting the flow of discussion. Compared to a condition without the robot, the robot's presence reduced variation in speaking time without harming ease of speaking, demonstrating a certain speech-equalizing effect.