Delivery robots and personal cargo robots are increasingly sharing space with incidentally co-present persons (InCoPs) on pedestrian ways facing the challenge of socially adequate and safe navigation. Humans are able to effortlessly negotiate this shared space by signalling their skirting intentions via non-verbal gaze cues. In two online-experiments we investigated whether this phenomenon of gaze cuing can be transferred to human–robot interaction. In the first study, participants (n = 92) watched short videos in which either a human, a humanoid robot or a non-humanoid delivery robot moved towards the camera. In each video, the counterpart looked either straight towards the camera or did an eye movement to the right or left. The results showed that when the counterpart gaze cued to their left, also participants skirted more often to the left from their perspective, thereby walking past each other and avoiding collision. Since the participants were recruited in a right-hand driving country we replicated the study in left-hand driving countries (n = 176). Results showed that participants skirted more often to the right when the counterpart gaze cued to the right, and to the left in case of eye movements to the left, expanding our previous result. In both studies, skirting behavior did not differ regarding the type of counterpart. Hence, gaze cues increase the chance to trigger complementary skirting behavior in InCoPs independently of the robot morphology. Equipping robots with eyes can help to indicate moving direction by gaze cues and thereby improve interactions between humans and robots on pedestrian ways.

送货机器人和个人货运机器人越来越多地与人行道上的偶然共存者 (InCoP) 共享空间，面临社会充分和安全导航的挑战。人类能够通过非语言的目光暗示来表达他们的回避意图，从而毫不费力地协商这个共享空间。在两个在线实验中，我们研究了这种目光暗示现象是否可以转移到人机交互中。在第一项研究中，参与者（n = 92）观看了短视频，其中人类、人形机器人或非人形送货机器人向摄像机移动。在每个视频中，对方要么直视镜头，要么向右或向左移动眼球。结果表明，当对方的目光转向左侧时，参与者也更频繁地从自己的角度向左移动，从而走过对方并避免碰撞。由于参与者是在右舵驾驶国家/地区招募的，因此我们在左舵驾驶国家/地区重复了该研究（n = 176）。结果显示，当对方的目光转向右侧时，参与者更频繁地转向右侧，而当对方的目光向左移动时，参与者更频繁地转向左侧，这扩大了我们之前的结果。在这两项研究中，根据对方的类型，回避行为没有差异。因此，注视线索增加了在 InCoP 中触发互补裙摆行为的机会，与机器人形态无关。为机器人配备眼睛可以帮助通过目光线索指示移动方向，从而改善人与机器人在人行道上的互动。