Mori (1970) proposed a hypothetical graph describing a nonlinear relation between a character's degree of human likeness and the emotional response of the human perceiver. However, the index construction of these variables could result in their strong correlation, thus preventing rated characters from being plotted accurately. Phase 1 of this study tested the indices of the Godspeed questionnaire as measures of humanlike characters. The results indicate significant and strong correlations among the relevant indices (Bartneck, Kulic, Croft, & Zoghbi, 2009). Phase 2 of this study developed alternative indices with nonsignificant correlations (p>.05) between the proposed y-axis eeriness and x-axis perceived humanness (r=.02). The new humanness and eeriness indices facilitate plotting relations among rated characters of varying human likeness.
#2Joseph A. Coram(IU: Indiana University Bloomington)H-Index: 1
Last. Himalaya Patel(IU: Indiana University Bloomington)H-Index: 8
view all 4 authors...
Simulated humans in computer interfaces are increasingly taking on roles that were once reserved for real humans. The presentation of simulated humans is affected by their appearance, motion quality, and interactivity. These presentational factors can influence the decisions of those who interact with them. This is of concern to interface designers and users alike, because these decisions often have moral and ethical consequences. However, the impact of presentational factors on decisions in eth...
The Uncanny Valley hypothesis has been widely used in the areas of computer graphics and Human-Robot Interaction to motivate research and to explain the negative impressions that participants report after exposure to highly realistic characters or robots. Despite its frequent use, empirical proof for the hypothesis remains scarce. This study empirically tested two predictions of the hypothesis: a) highly realistic robots are liked less than real humans and b) the highly realistic robot's movemen...
Very realistic human-looking robots or computer avatars tend to elicit negative feelings in human observers. This phenomenon is known as the “uncanny valley” response. It is hypothesized that this uncanny feeling is because the realistic synthetic characters elicit the concept of “human,” but fail to live up to it. That is, this failure generates feelings of unease due to character traits falling outside the expected spectrum of everyday social experience. These unsettling emotions are thought t...
#2Andrea E. Abele(FAU: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)H-Index: 40
Last. Wieslaw Baryla(FAU: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)H-Index: 6
view all 3 authors...
Liking and respect are proposed as two dimensions of interpersonal attitudes. Whereas liking–disliking reflects personal preferences, respect–disrespect reflects deference. Four studies involving a variety of samples and target persons showed that: (1) liking is more strongly influenced by communal than agentic qualities of the target, (2) respect is more strongly influenced by agentic than communal qualities of the target, (3) influence of communal information on liking is mediated by the perce...
As virtual humans approach photorealistic perfection, they risk making real humans uncomfortable. This intriguing phenomenon, known as the uncanny valley, is well known but not well understood. In an effort to demystify the causes of the uncanny valley, this paper proposes several perceptual, cognitive, and social mechanisms that have already helped address riddles like empathy, mate selection, threat avoidance, cognitive dissonance, and psychological defenses. In the four studies described here...
#1Christoph Bartneck(TU/e: Eindhoven University of Technology)H-Index: 35
#2Dana Kulic(UTokyo: University of Tokyo)H-Index: 31
Last. Susana Zoghbi(UBC: University of British Columbia)H-Index: 7
view all 4 authors...
This study emphasizes the need for standardized measurement tools for human robot interaction (HRI). If we are to make progress in this field then we must be able to compare the results from different studies. A literature review has been performed on the measurements of five key concepts in HRI: anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety. The results have been distilled into five consistent questionnaires using semantic differential scales. We report re...
Japan has more robots than any other country with robots contributing to many areas of society, including manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment. However, few studies have examined Japanese attitudes toward robots, and none has used implicit measures. This study compares attitudes among the faculty of a US and a Japanese university. Although the Japanese faculty reported many more experiences with robots, implicit measures indicated both faculties had more pleasant associations with humans...
Similar brain regions are involved when we imagine, observe and execute an action. Is the same true for emotions? Here, the same subjects were scanned while they (a) experience, (b) view someone else experiencing and (c) imagine experiencing gustatory emotions (through script-driven imagery). Capitalizing on the fact that disgust is repeatedly inducible within the scanner environment, we scanned the same participants while they (a) view actors taste the content of a cup and look disgusted (b) ta...
The eerie feeling attributed to human-looking robots and animated characters may be a key factor in our perceptual and cognitive discrimination of the human and humanlike. This study applies regression, the generalized linear model (GLM), factor analysis, multidimensional scaling (MDS), and kernel isometric mapping (Isomap) to analyze ratings of 27 emotions of 18 moving figures whose appearance varies along a human likeness continuum. The results indicate (1) Attributions of eerie and creepy bet...
Abstract Music's allure lies in its power to stir the emotions. But the relation between the physical properties of an acoustic signal and its emotional impact remains an open area of research. This paper reports the results and possible implications of a pilot study and survey used to construct an emotion index for subjective ratings of music. The dimensions of pleasure and arousal exhibit high reliability. Eighty-five participants' ratings of 100 song excerpts are used to benchmark the predict...
Realistic and lifelike 3D-reconstruction of virtual humans has various exciting and important use cases. Our and others' appearances have notable effects on ourselves and our interaction partners in virtual environments, e.g., on acceptance, preference, trust, believability, behavior (the Proteus effect), and more. Today, multiple approaches for the 3D-reconstruction of virtual humans exist. They significantly vary in terms of the degree of achievable realism, the technical complexities, and fin...
Research on creation of virtual humans enables increasing automatization of their behavior, including synthesis of verbal and nonverbal behavior. As the achievable realism of different aspects of agent design evolves asynchronously, it is important to understand if and how divergence in realism between behavioral channels can elicit negative user responses. Specifically, in this work, we investigate the question of whether autonomous virtual agents relying on synthetic text-to-speech voices shou...
Care for chronic disease requires patient adherence to treatment advice. Nonadherence worsens health outcomes and increases healthcare costs. When healthcare professionals are in short supply, a virtual physician could serve as a persuasive technology to promote adherence. However, acceptance of advice may be hampered by the uncanny valley effect—a feeling of eeriness elicited by human simulations. In a hypothetical virtual doctor consultation, 441 participants assumed the patient’s role. Variab...
#1Eileen Roesler(Technical University of Berlin)H-Index: 2
#2Dietrich Manzey(Technical University of Berlin)H-Index: 26
Last. Linda Onnasch(Humboldt University of Berlin)H-Index: 8
view all 3 authors...
The application of anthropomorphic design features is widely assumed to facilitate human-robot interaction (HRI). However, a considerable number of study results point in the opposite direction. Th...
Abstract Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-human agents such as robots. These attributions could depend on some dispositional factors such as the individuals' will to engage in reflective processes (need for cognition), to predict their environment (need for closure). Indeed, these traits may moderate how we explain artificial agents’ behavior that is our motivation to use cognitively more effortful reasoning about artificial agents against easily ...
Abstract null null This study aims to characterize the fixation pattern and neutral dynamics underlying affective impressions on humanoid robot appearances, which have a moderate anthropomorphism, to provide an objective evaluation of the affective impressions. Thirty appearance pictures of existing humanoid robots leaving negative, neutral, or positive impressions were selected online. Users’ eye-tracking and electroencephalography signals for the appearances were co-registered in a free viewin...
#1Linda Onnasch(Humboldt University of Berlin)H-Index: 8
#2Eileen Roesler(Technical University of Berlin)H-Index: 2
Robotic systems are one of the core technologies that will shape our future. Robots already change our private and professional life by working together with humans in various domains. Evoked by this increasing trend, great variability exists in terms of robots and interaction scenarios. This has boosted research regarding shaping factors of human–robot interaction (HRI). Nevertheless, this variety hinders the comparability and the generalizability of insights. What is needed for efficient resea...
Abstract Empirical investigations on the uncanny valley have almost solely focused on the analysis of people’s non-interactive perception of a robot at first sight. Recent studies suggest, however, that these uncanny first impressions may be significantly altered over an interaction. What is yet to discover is whether certain interaction patterns can lead to a faster decline in uncanny feelings. In this paper, we present a study in which participants with limited expertise in Computer Science pl...
Among of the factors that affect likeability, reciprocal response towards the other party is one of the multiple variables involved in social interaction. However, in HRI, likeability is constrained to robot behavior, since mass-produced robots will have identical physical embodiment. A reciprocal robot response is desirable in order to design robots as likeable agents for humans. In this paper, we discuss how perceived likeability in robots is a crucial multi-factorial phenomenon that has a str...
