• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.181-192
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• 2015

Nonverbal immediacy plays a key role in interpersonal communication, inducing closeness and another interaction. This case study investigates the nonverbal behaviors in Human-Robot Interaction(HRI) focusing on immediacy, and how they affect perception of a robot. The results show that nonverbal immediacy, such as nodding and leaning forward, affect perceived interactivity. Nonverbal immediacy can be interpreted their meaning clearly when verbal feedback or other communication channel reinforcing them. Also, touch is found to affect come up with similar ones to the robot, because it is associated with concrete and discrete context. People tend to apply social rules to the robot, but they are more open to the unfamiliar robot compared to strangers. The findings in this study provide future HRI studies with heuristic implications by showing a direction and clarifying principles for composition of verbal and nonverbal expression.