scholarly journals Attitude Towards Humanoid Robots and the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paweł Łupkowski ◽  
Marta Gierszewska
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Emotional Response ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Comfort Level ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
The Uncanny

AbstractThe main aim of the presented study was to check whether the well-established measures concerning the attitude towards humanoid robots are good predictors for the uncanny valley effect. We present a study in which 12 computer rendered humanoid models were presented to our subjects. Their declared comfort level was cross-referenced with the Belief in Human Nature Uniqueness (BHNU) and the Negative Attitudes toward Robots that Display Human Traits (NARHT) scales. Subsequently, there was no evidence of a statistical significance between these scales and the existence of the uncanny valley phenomenon. However, correlations between expected stress level while human-robot interaction and both BHNU, as well as NARHT scales, were found. The study covered also the evaluation of the perceived robots’ characteristic and the emotional response to them.

scholarly journals Understanding the Uncanny: Both Atypical Features and Category Ambiguity Provoke Aversion towards Humanlike Robots

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. Strait ◽  
Victoria A. Floerke ◽  
Wendy Ju ◽  
Keith Brian Maddox ◽  
Jessica D. Remedios ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Current Design ◽  
The Relationship

Robots intended for social contexts are often designed with explicit humanlike attributes in order to facilitate their reception by (and communication with) people. However, observation of an "uncanny valley" – a phenomenon in which highly humanlike entities provoke aversion in human observers – has lead some to caution against this practice. Both of these contrasting perspectives on the anthropomorphic design of social robots find some support in empirical investigations to date. Yet, owing to outstanding empirical limitations and theoretical disputes, the uncanny valley and its implications for human-robot interaction remains poorly understood. We thus explored the relationship between human similarity and people’s aversion towards humanlike robots via manipulation of the agents’ appearances. To that end, we employed a picture-viewing task (Nagents = 60) to conduct an experimental test (Nparticipants = 72) of the uncanny valley’s existence and the visual features that cause certain humanlike robots to be unnerving. Across the levels of human similarity, we further manipulated agent appearance on two dimensions, typicality (prototypic, atypical, and ambiguous) and agent identity (robot, person), and measured participants’ aversion using both subjective and behavioral indices. Our findings were as follows: (1) Further substantiating its existence, the data show a clear and consistent uncanny valley in the current design space of humanoid robots. (2) Both category ambiguity, and more so, atypicalities provoke aversive responding, thus shedding light on the visual factors that drive people’s discomfort. (3) Use of the Negative Attitudes towards Robots Scale did not reveal any significant relationships between people’s pre-existing attitudes towards humanlike robots and their aversive responding – suggesting positive exposure and/or additional experience with robots is unlikely to affect the occurrence of an uncanny valley effect in humanoid robotics. This work furthers our understanding of both the uncanny valley, as well as the visual factors that contribute to an agent’s uncanniness.

scholarly journals Aerial Flight Paths for Communication

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisha Bevins ◽  
Brittany A. Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Communication Situations ◽  
Aerial Vehicle ◽  
Communication Modalities

This article presents an understanding of naive users’ perception of the communicative nature of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) motions refined through an iterative series of studies. This includes both what people believe the UAV is trying to communicate, and how they expect to respond through physical action or emotional response. Previous work in this area prioritized gestures from participants to the vehicle or augmenting the vehicle with additional communication modalities, rather than communicating without clear definitions of the states attempting to be conveyed. In an attempt to elicit more concrete states and better understand specific motion perception, this work includes multiple iterations of state creation, flight path refinement, and label assignment. The lessons learned in this work will be applicable broadly to those interested in defining flight paths, and within the human-robot interaction community as a whole, as it provides a base for those seeking to communicate using non-anthropomorphic robots. We found that the Negative Attitudes towards Robots Scale (NARS) can be an indicator of how a person is likely to react to a UAV, the emotional content they are likely to perceive from a message being conveyed, and it is an indicator for the personality characteristics they are likely to project upon the UAV. We also see that people commonly associate motions from other non-verbal communication situations onto UAVs. Flight specific recommendations are to use a dynamic retreating motion from a person to encourage following, use a perpendicular motion to their field of view for blocking, simple descending motion for landing, and to use either no motion or large altitude changes to encourage watching. Overall, this research explores the communication from the UAV to the bystander through its motion, to see how people respond physically and emotionally.

scholarly journals Human-like Robots and the Uncanny Valley: A Meta-Analysis of User Responses Based on the Godspeed Scales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Mara ◽  
Markus Appel ◽  
Timo Gnambs
Keyword(s):  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Random Effects ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Total N ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Human Likeness

In the field of human-robot interaction, the well-known uncanny valley hypothesis proposes a curvilinear relationship between a robot’s degree of human likeness and the observers’ responses to the robot. While low to medium human likeness should be associated with increasingly positive responses, a shift to negative responses is expected for highly anthropomorphic robots. As empirical findings on the uncanny valley hypothesis are inconclusive, we conducted a random-effects meta-analysis of 49 studies (total N = 3,556) that reported 131 evaluations of robots based on the Godspeed scales for anthropomorphism (i.e., human likeness) and likability. Our results confirm more positive responses for more human-like robots at low to medium anthropomorphism, with moving robots rated as more human-like but not necessarily more likable than static ones. However, because highly anthropomorphic robots were sparsely utilized in previous studies, no conclusions regarding proposed adverse effects at higher levels of human likeness can be made at this stage.

scholarly journals The Exploration of the Uncanny Valley from the Viewpoint of the Robot’s Nonverbal Behaviour

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chidchanok Thepsoonthorn ◽  
Ken-ichiro Ogawa ◽  
Yoshihiro Miyake
Keyword(s):  
Nonverbal Behavior ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Fixation Duration ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Nonverbal Behaviour ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Head Nodding ◽  
Human Likeness

AbstractMany studies have been conducted to find approaches to overcome the Uncanny Valley. However, the focus on the influence of the robot’s appearance leaves a big missing part: the influence of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour. This impedes the complete exploration of the Uncanny Valley. In this study, we explored the Uncanny Valley from the viewpoint of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour in regard to the Uncanny Valley hypothesis. We observed a relationship between the participants’ ratings on human-likeness of the robot’s nonverbal behavior and affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior, and define the point where the affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior significantly drops down as the Uncanny Valley. In this study, an experiment of human–robot interaction was conducted. The participants were asked to interact with a robot with different nonverbal behaviours, ranging from 0 (no nonverbal behavior, speaking only) to 3 (gaze, head nodding, and gestures) combinations and to rate the perceived human-likeness and affinity toward the robot’s nonverbal behavior by using a questionnaire. Additionally, the participants’ fixation duration was measured during the experiment. The result showed a biphasic relationship between human-likeness and affinity rating results. A curve resembling the Uncanny Valley is found. The result was also supported by participants’ fixation duration. It showed that the participants had the longest fixation at the robot when the robot expressed the nonverbal behaviours that fall into the Uncanny Valley. This exploratory study provides evidence suggesting the existence of the Uncanny Valley from the viewpoint of the robot’s nonverbal behaviour.

Humans and humanoids

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Metta
Keyword(s):  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
Robot Vision ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Biologically Inspired ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Humanoid Robotics ◽  
Biomimetic Robot ◽  
Compliant Actuation

This chapter outlines a number of research lines that, starting from the observation of nature, attempt to mimic human behavior in humanoid robots. Humanoid robotics is one of the most exciting proving grounds for the development of biologically inspired hardware and software—machines that try to recreate billions of years of evolution with some of the abilities and characteristics of living beings. Humanoids could be especially useful for their ability to “live” in human-populated environments, occupying the same physical space as people and using tools that have been designed for people. Natural human–robot interaction is also an important facet of humanoid research. Finally, learning and adapting from experience, the hallmark of human intelligence, may require some approximation to the human body in order to attain similar capacities to humans. This chapter focuses particularly on compliant actuation, soft robotics, biomimetic robot vision, robot touch, and brain-inspired motor control in the context of the iCub humanoid robot.

scholarly journals User-centred design of humanoid robots’ communication

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
Sofia Thunberg ◽  
Tom Ziemke
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Ideas

AbstractInteraction between humans and robots will benefit if people have at least a rough mental model of what a robot knows about the world and what it plans to do. But how do we design human-robot interactions to facilitate this? Previous research has shown that one can change people’s mental models of robots by manipulating the robots’ physical appearance. However, this has mostly not been done in a user-centred way, i.e. without a focus on what users need and want. Starting from theories of how humans form and adapt mental models of others, we investigated how the participatory design method, PICTIVE, can be used to generate design ideas about how a humanoid robot could communicate. Five participants went through three phases based on eight scenarios from the state-of-the-art tasks in the RoboCup@Home social robotics competition. The results indicate that participatory design can be a suitable method to generate design concepts for robots’ communication in human-robot interaction.

scholarly journals The Importance of Realism, Character, and Genre: How Theatre Can Support the Creation of Likeable Sociable Robots

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise LePage
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Romantic Comedy ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Narrative Studies ◽  
Effective Performance ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
And Robotics

AbstractStage plays, theories of theatre, narrative studies, and robotics research can serve to identify, explore, and interrogate theatrical elements that support the effective performance of sociable humanoid robots. Theatre, including its parts of performance, aesthetics, character, and genre, can also reveal features of human–robot interaction key to creating humanoid robots that are likeable rather than uncanny. In particular, this can be achieved by relating Mori's (1970/2012) concept of total appearance to realism. Realism is broader and more subtle in its workings than is generally recognised in its operationalization in studies that focus solely on appearance. For example, it is complicated by genre. A realistic character cast in a detective drama will convey different qualities and expectations than the same character in a dystopian drama or romantic comedy. The implications of realism and genre carry over into real life. As stage performances and robotics studies reveal, likeability depends on creating aesthetically coherent representations of character, where all the parts coalesce to produce a socially identifiable figure demonstrating predictable behaviour.

Synthetic Emotions for Humanoids

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Grunberg ◽  
Alyssa M. Batula ◽  
Erik M. Schmidt ◽  
Youngmoo E. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Efficient Algorithm ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Critical Attribute ◽  
Robot Platform

The recognition and display of synthetic emotions in humanoid robots is a critical attribute for facilitating natural human-robot interaction. The authors utilize an efficient algorithm to estimate the mood in acoustic music, and then use the results of that algorithm to drive movement generation systems to provide motions for the robot that are suitable for the music. This system is evaluated on multiple sets of humanoid robots to determine if the choice of robot platform or number of robots influences the perceived emotional content of the motions. Their tests verify that the authors’ system can accurately identify the emotional content of acoustic music and produce motions that convey a similar emotion to that in the audio. They also determine the perceptual effects of using different sized or different numbers of robots in the motion performances.

scholarly journals Humanoid Robot Head Design Based on Uncanny Valley and FACS

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jizheng Yan ◽  
Zhiliang Wang ◽  
Yan Yan
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Control ◽  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Robot Head ◽  
The Relationship

Emotional robots are always the focus of artificial intelligence (AI), and intelligent control of robot facial expression is a hot research topic. This paper focuses on the design of humanoid robot head, which is divided into three steps to achieve. The first step is to solve the uncanny valley about humanoid robot, to find and avoid the relationship between human being and robot; the second step is to solve the association between human face and robot head; compared with human being and robots, we analyze the similarities and differences and explore the same basis and mechanisms between robot and human analyzing the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which guides us to achieve humanoid expressions. On the basis of the previous two steps, the third step is to construct a robot head; through a series of experiments we test the robot head, which could show some humanoid expressions; through human-robot interaction, we find people are surprised by the robot head expression and feel happy.

scholarly journals MODELING AND TESTING PROXEMIC BEHAVIOR FOR HUMANOID ROBOTS

2012 ◽  
Vol 09 (04) ◽  
pp. 1250028 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELENA TORTA ◽  
RAYMOND H. CUIJPERS ◽  
JAMES F. JUOLA ◽  
DAVID VAN DER POL
Keyword(s):  
Target Location ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Bayesian Filtering ◽  
Mathematical Form ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Verbal Interactions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Robotic Architecture

Humanoid robots that share the same space with humans need to be socially acceptable and effective as they interact with people. In this paper we focus our attention on the definition of a behavior-based robotic architecture that (1) allows the robot to navigate safely in a cluttered and dynamically changing domestic environment and (2) encodes embodied non-verbal interactions: the robot respects the users personal space (PS) by choosing the appropriate distance and direction of approach. The model of the PS is derived from human–robot interaction tests, and it is described in a convenient mathematical form. The robot's target location is dynamically inferred through the solution of a Bayesian filtering problem. The validation of the overall behavioral architecture shows that the robot is able to exhibit appropriate proxemic behavior.

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