Dimensions of anthropomorphism: From humanness to humanlikeness

In HRI anthropomorphism has been considered to be a unidimensional construct. However, social psychological studies of the potentially reverse process to anthropomorphisation - known as dehumanization - indicate that there are two distinct senses of humanness with different consequences for people who are dehumanized by deprivation of some of the aspects of these dimensions. These attributes are crucial for perception of others as humans. Therefore, we hypothesized that the same attributes could be used to anthropomorphize a robot in HRI and only a two-dimensional measures would be suitable to distinguish between different forms of making a robot more humanlike. In a study where participants played a quiz based on the TV show "Jeopardy!" we manipulated a NAO robot's intelligence and emotionality. The results suggest that only emotionality, not intelligence, makes robots be perceived as more humanlike. Furthermore, we found some evidence that anthropomorphism is a multidimensional phenomenon

The interactive effects of robot anthropomorphism and robot ability on perceived threat and support for robotics research

The present research examines how a robot’s physical anthropomorphism interacts with perceived ability of robots to impact the level of realistic and identity threat that people perceive from robots and how it affects their support for robotics research. Experimental data revealed that participants perceived robots to be significantly more threatening to humans after watching a video of an android that could allegedly outperform humans on various physical and mental tasks relative to a humanoid robot that could do the same. However, when participants were not provided with information about a new generation of robots’ ability relative to humans, then no significant differences were found in perceived threat following exposure to either the android or humanoid robots. Similarly, participants also expressed less support for robotics research after seeing an android relative to a humanoid robot outperform humans. However, when provided with no information about robots’ ability relative to humans, then participants showed marginally decreased support for robotics research following exposure to the humanoid relative to the android robot. Taken together, these findings suggest that very human like robots can not only be perceived as a realistic threat to human jobs, safety, and resources, but can also be seen as a threat to human identity and uniqueness, especially if such robots also outperform humans. We also demonstrate the potential downside of such robots to the public’s willingness to support and fund robotics research

Appearance of a robot affects the impact of its behaviour on perceived trustworthiness and empathy

An increasing number of companion robots have started reaching the public in the recent years. These robots vary in their appearance and behavior. Since these two factors can have an impact on lasting human-robot relationships, it is important to understand their effect for companion robots. We have conducted an experiment that evaluated the impact of a robot's appearance and its behaviour in repeated interactions on its perceived empathy, trustworthiness and anxiety experienced by a human. The results indicate that a highly humanlike robot is perceived as less trustworthy and empathic than a more machinelike robot. Moreover, negative behaviour of a machinelike robot reduces its trustworthiness and perceived empathy stronger than for highly humanlike robot. In addition, we found that a robot which disapproves of what a human says can induce anxiety felt towards its communication capabilities. Our findings suggest that more machinelike robots can be more suitable as companions than highly humanlike robots. Moreover, a robot disagreeing with a human interaction partner should be able to provide feedback on its understanding of the partner's message in order to reduce her anxiety

Model of dual anthropomorphism: Media Equation is related with implicit, but not explicit anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism, the attribution of humanlike characteristics to nonhuman entities, may be resulting from a dual process: first, a fast and intuitive (Type 1) process permits to quickly classify an object as humanlike and results in implicit anthropomorphism. Second, a reflective (Type 2) process may moderate the initial judgment based on conscious effort and result in explicit anthropomorphism. In this study, we manipulated both participants’ motivation for Type 2 processing and a robot’s emotionality to investigate the role of Type 1 versus Type 2 processing in forming judgments about the robot Robovie R2. We did so by having participants play the “Jeopardy!” game with the robot. Subsequently, we directly and indirectly measured anthropomorphism by administering self-report measures and a priming task, respectively. Furthermore, we measured treatment of the robot as a social actor to establish its relation with implicit and explicit anthropomorphism. The results suggested that the model of dual anthropomorphism can explain when responses are likely to reflect judgments based on Type 1 and Type 2 processes. Moreover, we showed that the social treatment of a robot, as described by the Media Equation theory, is related with implicit, but not explicit anthropomorphism