How Does Experiential Value toward Robot Barista Service Affect Emotions, Storytelling, and Behavioral Intention in the Context of COVID-19?

This study aims to examine the antecedents of storytelling and intention to a behavioral robot barista coffee shop (RBCS) by exploring experiential values and emotions. For the analysis, a set of hypotheses was developed and tested based on data collected from 300 customers who had visited a RBCS in South Korea. In the verification, the atmosphere showed the greatest influence on positive emotion, followed by consumer return on investment (CROI). These results mean that atmosphere, CROI, and escapism are important to induce positive emotion and behavioral intention for robot barista coffee shop. This is the first study to examine consumers’ experiential value regarding non-face-to-face robot service in the food service industry. This design is different from previous experiential value studies on human services in the hospitality industry. By integrating artificial intelligence and digital innovation into food service, this study broadens the scope of research in consumer behavior, making a significant theoretical contribution to the literature. Furthermore, this study proposes practical implications for sustainable coffee shop management in a COVID-19 environment.

An expressional simplified mechanism in anthropomorphic face robot design

SUMMARYThe goal of this research is to develop a low-cost face robot which has a lower degree-of-freedom facial expression mechanism. Many designs of facial robots have been announced and published in the past. Face robots can be classified into two major types based on their respective degrees of freedom. The first type has various facial expressions with higher degrees of freedom, and the second has finite facial expressions with fewer degrees of freedom. Due to the high cost of the higher-degree-of-freedom face robot, most commercial face robot products are designed in the lower-degrees-of-freedom form with finite facial expressions. Therefore, a face robot with a simplified facial expression mechanism is proposed in this research. The main purpose of this research is to develop a device with a lower degree-of-freedom mechanism that is able to generate many facial expressions while keeping one basic mouth shape variation. Our research provides a new face robot example and development direction to reduce costs and conserve energy.