Perception and Evaluation in Human–Robot Interaction: The Human–Robot Interaction Evaluation Scale (HRIES)—A Multicomponent Approach of Anthropomorphism

The Godspeed Questionnaire Series in the Assessment of the Social Robot TIAGo by Older Individuals

(1) Background: A robot in care for older adults requires solid research confirming its acceptance. The aim of this study was to present the Polish version of the Godspeed Questionnaire Series (GQS) and assess the perception of the social robot TIAGo; (2) Methods: The study involved older individuals living in the community and care homes and measured perception after interaction with TIAGo using five series of GQS (S1: Anthropomorphism, S2: Animacy, S3: Likeability, S4: Perceived intelligence, and S5: Perceived safety); (3) Results: We studied 178 individuals (age: 75.2 ± 9.6 years, 103 women). Good internal consistency was found. Cronbach's Alpha was 0.90 for the entire tool (from 0.75 to 0.94 for the individual series). Mean scores for S1 and S2 were comparable but lower than all others (p < 0.001). Average scores for S3 and S4 did not differ but were higher than those of S5. Age, gender and education did not impact the answers, as did the ease of use of technology and self-assessment of independence. Solely, the place of residence influenced the results of S3 and S5; people living in institutions scored higher (p < 0.05 and p < 0.001, respectively); (4) Conclusions: Acceptance does not go hand in hand with the perception of anthropomorphism and animacy.

The Estimation of Physical Distances Between Oneself and a Social Robot: Am I as Far From the Robot as It is from Me?

Research on the perception of interpersonal distance has shown the existence of an asymmetry effect which depends on the reference point of the estimation: the distance from oneself to others can be perceived as longer or shorter than the distance from others to oneself. The mechanism underlying this asymmetric effect is related to the object's cognitive salience. The self often functions as a habitual reference point and therefore one's own salience may be higher than that of other objects. In this case, an egocentric asymmetry effect appears with a perceived shorter distance from others to oneself. However, if others are more salient than oneself, then the reverse can happen (allocentric asymmetry effect). The present work investigates if asymmetry in self-other(s) distance perception changes when the other is a social robot. An experiment was conducted with 174 participants who were asked to estimate the distance between themselves and both robotic and human assistants on a schematic map of a hospital emergency room (between-subjects design). With robust ANOVA, the results showed that the participants felt closer to the human assistant than to the robot, notably when the person served as the estimation reference point. Perceived distances to the social robot were not significantly distorted. If a rather allocentric effect with the human assistant might reflect an affiliation goal on the part of the participants, the absence of effect with the social robot forces us to reconsider its humanization. This could nevertheless reflect a purely mechanical and utilitarian conception of it.

The Phenotypes of Anthropomorphism and the Link to Personality Traits

Facing robotic agents, we cannot help but ascribe them anthropomorphic characteristics. While this cognitive process has been extensively studied, numerous questions remain about how the tendency to anthropomorphize is related to individual differences and personality traits (i.e. phenotypes). Understanding what generates inter-individual differences is crucial since these differences can explain an important part of the representations and therefore behaviors towards robots. In two studies we aimed to evaluate the idea that anthropomorphism and appraisal of robots can be related to individual phenotypes. We also investigated the relationship between personality traits and anthropomorphic phenotypes. Our results support the idea that anthropomorphism can be considered a phenotype with clear individual differences in anthropomorphic tendencies based on a 2 × 2 anthropomorphism tendency/appraisal matrix.

A Thing like a Human? A Mixed-Methods Study on Sex Doll Usage

Sex dolls have evolved over the last decades and are getting more popular. Whether sex doll ownership should be protected as a sexual right that facilitates sexual health or whether its usage might be harmful to women and society is vividly discussed. In this polarized debate, empirical research is scarce and possible differentiations in the psychological functions of sex dolls remain nearly unknown. To further explore sex doll ownership, this study conducted five in-depth interviews with sex doll users and collected 131 written reports on sex doll ownership in an online survey with open and closed questions. In a mixed-methods approach, the data was then analyzed using Mayring's Qualitative Content Analysis and quantitative measures. Although the demographics of sex doll users are homogenous (single heterosexual males), results indicate that the use is divers. Sex dolls are mostly used as masturbatory aid, as substitutes for human partners, and as synthetic partners. We explore the similarities and differences between these kinds of usage and propose that a differentiation of sex doll use can enrich current research on social robotics, anthropomorphism, and misogyny.

Different models of anthropomorphism across cultures and ontological limits in current frameworks the integrative framework of anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to ascribe human characteristics to nonhuman agents. Due to the increased interest in social robotics, anthropomorphism has become a core concept of human-robot interaction (HRI) studies. However, the wide use of this concept resulted in an interchangeability of its definition. In the present study, we propose an integrative framework of anthropomorphism (IFA) encompassing three levels: cultural, individual general tendencies, and direct attributions of human-like characteristics to robots. We also acknowledge the Western bias of the state-of-the-art view of anthropomorphism and develop a cross-cultural approach. In two studies, participants from various cultures completed tasks and questionnaires assessing their animism beliefs, individual tendencies to endow robots with mental properties, spirit, and consider them as more or less human. We also evaluated their attributions of mental anthropomorphic characteristics towards robots (i.e., cognition, emotion, intention). Our results demonstrate, in both experiments, that a three-level model (as hypothesized in the IFA) reliably explains the collected data. We found an overall influence of animism (cultural level) on the two lower levels, and an influence of the individual tendencies to mentalize, spiritualize and humanize (individual level) on the attribution of cognition, emotion and intention. In addition, in Experiment 2, the analyses show a more anthropocentric view of the mind for Western than East-Asian participants. As such, Western perception of robots depends more on humanization while East-Asian on mentalization. We further discuss these results in relation to the anthropomorphism literature and argue for the use of integrative cross-cultural model in HRI research.

The Intentional Stance Test-2: How to Measure the Tendency to Adopt Intentional Stance Towards Robots

In human-robot interactions, people tend to attribute to robots mental states such as intentions or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This cognitive strategy is termed "intentional stance". Adopting the intentional stance influences how one will consider, engage and behave towards robots. However, people differ in their likelihood to adopt intentional stance towards robots. Therefore, it seems crucial to assess these interindividual differences. In two studies we developed and validated the structure of a task aiming at evaluating to what extent people adopt intentional stance towards robot actions, the Intentional Stance task (IST). The Intentional Stance Task consists in a task that probes participants' stance by requiring them to choose the plausibility of a description (mentalistic vs. mechanistic) of behaviour of a robot depicted in a scenario composed of three photographs. Results showed a reliable psychometric structure of the IST. This paper therefore concludes with the proposal of using the IST as a proxy for assessing the degree of adoption of the intentional stance towards robots.

Robots facilitate human language production

Despite recent developments in integrating autonomous and human-like robots into many aspects of everyday life, social interactions with robots are still a challenge. Here, we focus on a central tool for social interaction: verbal communication. We assess the extent to which humans co-represent (simulate and predict) a robot's verbal actions. During a joint picture naming task, participants took turns in naming objects together with a social robot (Pepper, Softbank Robotics). Previous findings using this task with human partners revealed internal simulations on behalf of the partner down to the level of selecting words from the mental lexicon, reflected in partner-elicited inhibitory effects on subsequent naming. Here, with the robot, the partner-elicited inhibitory effects were not observed. Instead, naming was facilitated, as revealed by faster naming of word categories co-named with the robot. This facilitation suggests that robots, unlike humans, are not simulated down to the level of lexical selection. Instead, a robot's speaking appears to be simulated at the initial level of language production where the meaning of the verbal message is generated, resulting in facilitated language production due to conceptual priming. We conclude that robots facilitate core conceptualization processes when humans transform thoughts to language during speaking.