Robotic Table and Bench Enhance Mirror Type Social Telepresence

Current videoconferencing systems can be roughly divided into two types: a window-type where a computer display works as a window to reveal a remote partner, and a mirror-type whose display shows the mirrored reflections of both participants. While mirror-type systems enhance the feeling of togetherness by merging the two sites into one display, an inherent problem remains. Despite the mirror metaphor, the partner has no physical body in front of the display. To cope with this incongruence, we placed a partition in front of the display. Across that partition we further also placed a robotic table and a robotic bench that move based on the partner's behavior. The experiments indicated that the table and bench successfully facilitated feeling as if there were the partner's physical body was present at the opposite side of the partition.