Wizard of Awwws

In social Human-Robot Interaction (sHRI) people have studied social interactions with awkward, confrontational, or unsettling robots. In order to create these situations, researchers often secretly control the robot (the "Wizard of Oz", WoZ, technique), use confederates (researchers pretending to be participants), or the researchers themselves create the desired social condition. While these studies may be antagonistic, they are designed to be …