The Influence of Prior Expectations of a Robot's Lifelikeness on Users' Intentions to Treat a Zoomorphic Robot as a Companion
The Influence of Prior Expectations of a Robot's Lifelikeness on Users' Intentions to Treat a Zoomorphic Robot as a Companion
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DOI：
10.1007/s12369-016-0340-4
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发表时间：
2017-01-01
影响因子：
4.7
通讯作者：
Ben Allouch, Somaya
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
de Graaf, Maartje Margaretha Allegonda;Ben Allouch, Somaya
从本质上讲，我们是社会生物，生来就与他人建立联系。鉴于机器人预计将越来越多地在社会角色中为人类服务，深入了解我们与机器人关系的心理方面变得越来越重要。早期的研究结果表明，机器人感知的逼真度和性别对于人机友谊起着重要作用。在一项实验研究中，我们测试了个体的性别（男性与女性）和对机器人逼真度的先前期望（高与低）是否会影响最初为人类友谊形成而确定的先决条件（即接近、身体吸引力、相似性、相互喜欢、亲密）对个体将兽形机器人视为伴侣的意图的影响。我们的研究结果表明，当人们对机器人的逼真度有很高的预先期望时，解释人们为何相互建立关系的类似变量能够更好地解释他们将这种兽形机器人视为伴侣的意图。因此，陪伴机器人应该具有栩栩如生的外观，但这并不一定意味着具有与人类相似的外观。此外，当男性和女性评估自己将兽形机器人视为伴侣的意图时，他们关注人类友谊形成的不同先决条件。这意味着伴侣机器人的开发人员应该意识到这些在联系方面的性别差异，男性和女性甚至可能更喜欢伴侣机器人在外观或行为方面的不同设计。
We are, at our roots, social creatures who are designed to bond with others. Given that robots are expected to increasingly serve humans in social roles, insight into the psychological aspects of our relationships with robots is becoming more relevant. Earlier findings indicate a strong role of a robot's perceived lifelikeness and gender for human-robot companionships. In an experimental study, we tested whether an individual's gender (male vs. female) and prior expectation of a robot's lifelikeness (high vs. low) influence the effect of preconditions originally identified for human friendship formation (i.e., proximity, physical attraction, similarity, reciprocal liking, intimacy) on the individual's intention to treat a zoomorphic robot as a companion. Our results show that when people have high prior expectations of a robot's lifelikeness, similar variables that explain why people establish relationships with each other are better able to explain their intentions to treat such a zoomorphic robot as a companion. Thus, companion robots should have a lifelike appearance, which does not necessarily mean a humanlike appearance. Moreover, men and women focus on different preconditions for human friendship formation when they evaluate their intentions to treat zoomorphic robots as companions. This means that developers of companion robots should be aware of these gender differences in bonding, and men and women may even prefer different designs, in terms of either appearance or behavior, for their companion robots.