  Interacting physically with robots and sharing environment with them leads to
situations where humans and robots have to cross each other in narrow
corridors. In these cases, the robot has to make space for the human to pass.
From observation of human-human crossing behaviours, we isolated two main
factors in this avoiding behaviour: body rotation and sliding motion. We
implemented a robot controller able to vary these factors and explored how this
variation impacted on people's perception. Results from a within-participants
study involving 23 participants show that people prefer a robot rotating its
body when crossing them. Additionally, a sliding motion is rated as being
warmer. These results show the importance of social avoidance when interacting
with humans.
