Abstract
Recent technological developments in robotics has driven the design and production of different humanoid robots. Several studies have highlighted that the presence of human-like physical features could lead both adults and children to anthropomorphize the robots. In the present study we aimed to compare the attribution of mental states to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, which differed in the degree of anthropomorphism. Children aged 5, 7, and 9 years were required to attribute mental states to the NAO robot, which presents more human-like characteristics compared to the Robovie robot, whose physical features look more mechanical. The results on mental state attribution as a function of children’s age and robot type showed that 5-year-olds have a greater tendency to anthropomorphize robots than older children, regardless of the type of robot. Moreover, the findings revealed that, although children aged 7 and 9 years attributed a certain degree of human-like mental features to both robots, they attributed greater mental states to NAO than Robovie compared to younger children. These results generally show that children tend to anthropomorphize humanoid robots that also present some mechanical characteristics, such as Robovie. Nevertheless, age-related differences showed that they should be endowed with physical characteristics closely resembling human ones to increase older children’s perception of human likeness. These findings have important implications for the design of robots, which also needs to consider the user’s target age, as well as for the generalizability issue of research findings that are commonly associated with the use of specific types of robots.
Highlights
We are witnessing an increasing deployment of social robots (Bartneck and Forlizzi, 2004) in various contexts, from occupational to clinical to educational (Murashov et al, 2016; Belpaeme et al, 2018; Marchetti et al, in press)
The same Humanoid social robots (HSRs) are used both for different purposes and different populations, like the NAO robot, which is largely used both with clinical and non-clinical populations (Shamsuddin et al, 2012; Mubin et al, 2013; Begum et al, 2016; Belpaeme et al, 2018), or the Robovie robot, that is employed both with adults and children (Shiomi et al, 2006; Kahn et al, 2012)
The present study aimed to investigate the attribution of mental states (AMS) in children aged 5–9 years to two humanoid robots, NAO and Robovie, varying in their anthropomorphic physical features (DiSalvo et al, 2002; Duffy, 2003)
Summary
We are witnessing an increasing deployment of social robots (Bartneck and Forlizzi, 2004) in various contexts, from occupational to clinical to educational (Murashov et al, 2016; Belpaeme et al, 2018; Marchetti et al, in press). Humanoid social robots can vary in the degree of their anthropomorphic physical characteristics, often depending on the target user (children, adults, elderly, students, clinical populations, etc.) and the context (household, education, commercial, and rehabilitation). The second perspective (DR) is related to the development of cognitive neural networks in the robot that would allow it to autonomously gain sensorimotor and mental capabilities with growing complexity, starting from intricate evolutionary principles. From these premises, the two paragraphs briefly outline current findings concerning the effect that physical features of the HSRs have on human perception, outlining the phenomenon of anthropomorphism, and a recent methodology devised to measure it
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