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According to a new study, making eye contact with a robot may have the same effect on people as eye contact with another person. The results predict that interaction between humans and humanoid robots will be surprisingly smooth.
According to a new study by Tampere
University in Finland, making eye contact with a robot may have the same
effect on people as eye contact with another person by Science Daily.
Photo: Muhammad Taufik via Flickr.
The results predict that interaction between humans and humanoid robots will be surprisingly smooth.
With the rapid progress in robotics, it is anticipated that people will increasingly interact with so called social robots in the future. Despite the artificiality of robots, people seem to react to them socially and ascribe humane attributes to them. For instance, people may perceive different qualities -- such as knowledgeability, sociability, and likeability -- in robots based on how they look and/or behave.
Previous surveys have been able to shed light on people's perceptions of social robots and their characteristics, but the very central question of what kind of automatic reactions social robots evoke in us humans has remained unanswered. Does interacting with a robot cause similar reactions as interacting with another human?
Researchers at Tampere University investigated the matter by studying the physiological reactions that eye contact with a social robot evokes. Eye contact was chosen as the topic of the study for two major reasons...
The results showed that all the above-mentioned physiological reactions were stronger in the case of eye contact compared to averted gaze when shared with both another person and a humanoid robot. Eye contact with the robot and another human focused the participants' attention, raised their level of arousal and elicited a positive emotional response.
Journal Reference:
- Helena Kiilavuori, Veikko Sariola, Mikko J. Peltola, Jari K. Hietanen. Making eye contact with a robot: Psychophysiological responses to eye contact with a human and with a humanoid robot. Biological Psychology, 2021; 158: 107989 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2020.107989
Source: Science Daily
