Dataset Information

The Impact of Human-Robot Synchronization on Anthropomorphization.

ABSTRACT: To elucidate the working mechanism behind anthropomorphism, this study investigated whether human participants would anthropomorphize a robot more if they move synchronously versus non-synchronously with it, and whether this is affected by which of the two initiates the movements. We tested two competing hypotheses. The feature-overlap hypothesis predicts that moving in synchrony would increase perceived self-other feature overlap, which in turn might spread activation to codes of features related to humans-which should increase anthropomorphization. In contrast, the autonomy hypothesis predicts that unpredictability increases anthropomorphization, and thus that whenever the robot initiates movements, or when the human initiates movements to which the robot moves non-synchronously, there is an increased perception of the robot as a more human-like, intentionally acting creature, which in turn should increase anthropomorphization. We performed a study with synchrony as within-subjects factor, and initiator (robot or human) as between-subjects factor. To study the impact of synchrony on self-other overlap and perception of human likeness, participants completed two tasks that served as implicit measures of state anthropomorphization, and two questionnaires that served as explicit measures of state anthropomorphization toward the robot. The two implicit measures were the joint Simon task and one-shot Dictator Game. Additionally, participants filled in a trait anthropomorphization questionnaire, to enable correction for baseline tendencies to anthropomorphize. The synchrony manipulation did not affect the joint Simon effect, although there was an effect on average reaction time (RT), where in the group in which the robot initiated the movement, RTs were slower when the human and robot moved non-synchronously. The Dictator Game offer and the state anthropomorphization questionnaires were not affected by the synchrony manipulation. There was, however, a positive correlation between current anthropomorphization of the robot and amount of money offered to it. Given that most measures were not systematically affected by our manipulation, it appears that either our design was suboptimal, or that synchronization does not affect the anthropomorphization of a robot.

SUBMITTER: Heijnen S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6331525 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The Impact of Human-Robot Synchronization on Anthropomorphization.

Heijnen Saskia S de Kleijn Roy R Hommel Bernhard B

Frontiers in psychology 20190108

To elucidate the working mechanism behind anthropomorphism, this study investigated whether human participants would anthropomorphize a robot more if they move synchronously versus non-synchronously with it, and whether this is affected by which of the two initiates the movements. We tested two competing hypotheses. The feature-overlap hypothesis predicts that moving in synchrony would increase perceived self-other feature overlap, which in turn might spread activation to codes of features relat ...[more]

PMID: 30670995

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundHuman senses have evolved to recognise sensory cues. Beyond our perception, they play an integral role in our emotional processing, learning, and interpretation. They are what help us to sculpt our everyday experiences and can be triggered by aesthetics to form the foundations of our interactions with each other and our surroundings. In terms of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), robots have the possibility to interact with both people and environments given their senses. They can offer the attributes of human characteristics, which in turn can make the interchange with technology a more appealing and admissible experience. However, for many reasons, people still do not seem to trust and accept robots. Trust is expressed as a person's ability to accept the potential risks associated with participating alongside an entity such as a robot. Whilst trust is an important factor in building relationships with robots, the presence of uncertainties can add an additional dimension to the decision to trust a robot. In order to begin to understand how to build trust with robots and reverse the negative ideology, this paper examines the influences of aesthetic design techniques on the human ability to trust robots.MethodThis paper explores the potential that robots have unique opportunities to improve their facilities for empathy, emotion, and social awareness beyond their more cognitive functionalities. Through conducting an online questionnaire distributed globally, we explored participants ability and acceptance in trusting the Canbot U03 robot. Participants were presented with a range of visual questions which manipulated the robot's facial screen and asked whether or not they would trust the robot. A selection of questions aimed at putting participants in situations where they were required to establish whether or not to trust a robot's responses based solely on the visual appearance. We accomplished this by manipulating different design elements of the robots facial and chest screens, which influenced the human-robot interaction.ResultsWe found that certain facial aesthetics seem to be more trustworthy than others, such as a cartoon face versus a human face, and that certain visual variables (i.e., blur) afforded uncertainty more than others. Consequentially, this paper reports that participant's uncertainties of the visualisations greatly influenced their willingness to accept and trust the robot. The results of introducing certain anthropomorphic characteristics emphasised the participants embrace of the uncanny valley theory, where pushing the degree of human likeness introduced a thin line between participants accepting robots and not. By understanding what manipulation of design elements created the aesthetic effect that triggered the affective processes, this paper further enriches our knowledge of how we might design for certain emotions, feelings, and ultimately more socially acceptable and trusting robotic experiences.

Dataset Information

The Impact of Human-Robot Synchronization on Anthropomorphization.

Publications

The Impact of Human-Robot Synchronization on Anthropomorphization.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets