{"paper":{"title":"Emotional Expression in Low-Degrees-of-Freedom Robots: Assessing Perception with Reachy Mini","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Constrained movements on low-DoF robots like Reachy Mini can convey affective meaning along valence and arousal, shaping social perceptions more than exact emotion labels.","cross_cats":["cs.HC"],"primary_cat":"cs.RO","authors_text":"Amit Rogel, Elmira Yadollahi, Guy Laban","submitted_at":"2026-05-12T22:01:41Z","abstract_excerpt":"Emotion expression is central to human--robot interaction, yet little is known about how people interpret affect on robots with sparse, non-anthropomorphic expressive capabilities. This study examined how people perceive emotional expressions displayed by Reachy Mini (Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face), a low-degree-of-freedom (low-DoF) robot with a constrained and distinctly non-human expressive repertoire. In an online within-subjects study, 100 participants viewed 10 short video clips of Reachy Mini expressing different emotions and, for each clip, identified the perceived emotion, rated its"},"claims":{"count":3,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"These findings suggest that even constrained robotic expressions can communicate affective meaning and influence social impressions, positioning Reachy Mini as a useful benchmark for studying affective communication in low-DoF robots.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That the short video clips accurately and unambiguously represent the intended emotional expressions, and that participants' self-reports reliably capture perception without influence from prior expectations or video quality.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"Constrained movements on low-DoF robots like Reachy Mini can convey affective meaning along valence and arousal, shaping social perceptions more than exact emotion labels.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"089830935917d64e2ebc8bb6f9ec7a2984b8e7e8e6b8e08eef083fbee40408f1"},"source":{"id":"2605.12786","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"40591435-53f0-49c0-b712-46e373925458","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-14T19:50:41.951944Z","strongest_claim":"These findings suggest that even constrained robotic expressions can communicate affective meaning and influence social impressions, positioning Reachy Mini as a useful benchmark for studying affective communication in low-DoF robots.","one_line_summary":"Constrained movements on low-DoF robots like Reachy Mini can convey affective meaning along valence and arousal, shaping social perceptions more than exact emotion labels.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That the short video clips accurately and unambiguously represent the intended emotional expressions, and that participants' self-reports reliably capture perception without influence from prior expectations or video quality.","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":40,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2022,"title":"Survey of emotions in human–robot interactions: Perspectives from robotic psychology on 20 years of research,","work_id":"a50a7395-b550-4d30-8251-d5cd0681463b","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2011,"title":"Human brain spots emotion in non humanoid robots,","work_id":"83daeaf9-0489-4a08-8090-5dbe986d0a33","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2012,"title":"Robot-specific social cues in emotional body language,","work_id":"797279d9-91fa-4bd2-9059-abb4cca3250e","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2024,"title":"Human perception of the emotional expressions of humanoid robot body movements: Evidence from survey and eye-tracking measurements,","work_id":"b60c17b6-bd2e-41b9-9c33-8d7861264745","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2025,"title":"Past, Present, and Future: A Survey of The Evolution of Affective Robotics For Well-being,","work_id":"7ab7ec45-eef8-4aa7-bc0a-f28bf3453d67","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":40,"snapshot_sha256":"7f74badcee158a05273656f7dcaca08091157fe4f4c9bc698d90f288eb7d991f","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}