  Many people expect robots to move fairly quietly, or make pleasant "beep
boop" sounds or jingles similar to what they have observed in videos of robots.
Unfortunately, this expectation of quietness does not match reality, as robots
make machine sounds, known as 'consequential sounds', as they move and operate.
As robots become more prevalent within society, understanding the sounds
produced by robots and how these sounds are perceived by people is becoming
increasingly important for positive human robot interactions (HRI). This paper
investigates how people respond to the consequential sounds of robots,
specifically how robots make a participant feel, how much they like the robot,
would be distracted by the robot, and a person's desire to colocate with
robots. Participants were shown 5 videos of different robots and asked their
opinions on the robots and the sounds they made. This was compared with a
control condition of completely silent videos. The results in this paper
demonstrate with data from 182 participants (858 trials) that consequential
sounds produced by robots have a significant negative effect on human
perceptions of robots. Firstly there were increased negative 'associated
affects' of the participants, such as making them feel more uncomfortable or
agitated around the robot. Secondly, the presence of consequential sounds
correlated with participants feeling more distracted and less able to focus.
Thirdly participants reported being less likely to want to colocate in a shared
environment with robots.
