Does Embodiment Matter? Evaluating Social Presence, Comfort and Authenticity in Robot-Guided Meditation
International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces July 21, 2026 Ellie Green, Andrew Blair, Mary Ellen Foster
Guided meditation is predominantly delivered through audio-only media or in-person sessions, yet social robots may offer a richer form of interaction through physical embodiment. To investigate this, we implemented a loving-kindness meditation on the Furhat robot and compared user responses to the robot-guided meditation to an equivalent audio-only condition. Social presence was measured on a...