A good listener robot would be a good speaker.
Scientists have succeeded in upgrading human-looking robots to make them fit to speak like the exact ones.
Scientists say that they have done so by enhancing their ability to listen to the robots. Robot Andrew Irica, created by Japan's Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, has been specially designed to communicate and show the kind of people.
Tatsuya Kawahara of the Kyoto University of Japan says that whenever we talk to each other, there is no order to go back and forth in the information. Listening is also an active process. On hearing, sometimes we give feedback like Hmmm, huh, to continue the sequence of conversations. It goes by the name of backchanneling. We have implemented the same procedure in Irica.
The team is also trying to develop attentive listening, in which a listener tries to answer the words repeating the words of the speaker while talking. The team is collecting data such as distance sensors, face detection cameras, and microphones, so that stream flows can be possible between robots and humans.
Kawahara says that while studying backchanneling he has to know about three qualities. Thus, in a five-minute conversation, Erica found out a better conversation with humans.