The Space Between Us: A Methodological Framework for Researching Bonding and Proxemics in Situated Group-Agent Interactions
arXiv:2506.11829
Abstract
This paper introduces a multimethod framework for studying spatial and social dynamics in real-world group-agent interactions with socially interactive agents. Drawing on proxemics and bonding theories, the method combines subjective self-reports and objective spatial tracking. Applied in two field studies in a museum (N = 187) with a robot and a virtual agent, the paper addresses the challenges in aligning human perception and behavior. We focus on presenting an open source, scalable, and field-tested toolkit for future studies.
Accepted for presentation at the Workshop on Advancing Group Understanding and Robots' Adaptive Behavior (GROUND), held at the Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) Conference 2025, Genoa, Italy