Integrating Flow Theory and Adaptive Robot Roles: A Conceptual Model of Dynamic Robot Role Adaptation for the Enhanced Flow Experience in Long-term Multi-person Human-Robot Interactions

In this paper, we introduce a novel conceptual model for a robot's behavioral adaptation in its long-term interaction with humans, integrating dynamic robot role adaptation with principles of flow experience from psychology. This conceptualization introduces a hierarchical interaction objective grounded in the flow experience, serving as the overarching adaptation goal for the robot. This objective intertwines both cognitive and affective sub-objectives and incorporates individual and group-level human factors. The dynamic role adaptation approach is a cornerstone of our model, highlighting the robot’s ability to fluidly adapt its support roles—from leader to follower—with the aim of maintaining equilibrium between activity challenge and user skill, thereby fostering the user's optimal flow experiences. Moreover, this work delves into a comprehensive exploration of the limitations and potential applications of our proposed conceptualization. Our model places a particular emphasis on the multi-person HRI paradigm, a dimension of HRI that is both under-explored and challenging. In doing so, we aspire to extend the applicability and relevance of our conceptualization within the HRI field, contributing to the future development of adaptive social robots capable of sustaining long-term interactions with humans.