The oz of wizard: simulating the human for interaction research

The Wizard of Oz experiment method has a long tradition of acceptance and use within the field of human-robot interaction. The community has traditionally downplayed the importance of interaction evaluations run with the inverse model: the human simulated to evaluate robot behavior, or “Oz of Wizard”. We argue that such studies play an important role in the field of human-robot interaction. We differentiate between methodologically rigorous human modeling and placeholder simulations using simplified human models. Guidelines are proposed for when Oz of Wizard results should be considered acceptable. This paper also describes a framework for describing the various permutations of Wizard and Oz states. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 [INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (e.g., HCI)]: User Interfaces – Evaluation/methodology, Theory and methods. General Terms Measurement, Performance, Design, Experimentation, Human Factors, Theory. Keywords Wizard of Oz, human-robot int...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: HRI
• Authors: Aaron Steinfeld, Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, Brian Scassellati
• Keywords: HRI 2009, Human Robot Interaction, Human-robot Interaction, Interaction Evaluations, Simplified Human Models