Follow the Force: Haptic Communication Enhances Coordination in Physical Human-Robot Interaction When Humans are Followers

To enhance the integration of robots into daily human life and industrial settings, there is a growing focus on the development of robots capable of physical collaboration with humans. Studies have shown that haptic feedback serves as an essential channel of communication that allows humans to better collaborate with each other. In this study, we investigated the role of haptic communication in physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) tasks, especially in the leader-follower role distribution. We have shown that participants adopted different roles when working with different agents. Haptic feedback promotes a more balanced role distribution between leaders and followers. Moreover, haptic feedback only improved coordination between humans and artificial agents when humans acted as followers. Our findings can potentially enhance robots' ability to anticipate human adaptation and improve their understanding of humans through haptic communication.