Abstract
Gaze behavior is an important social signal between humans as it communicates locations of interest. People typically orient their attention to where others look as this informs about others' intentions and future actions. Studies have shown that humans can engage in similar gaze behavior with robots but presumably more so when they adopt the intentional stance toward them (i.e., believing robot behaviors are intentional). In laboratory settings, the phenomenon of attending toward the direction of others' gaze has been examined with the use of the gaze-cueing paradigm. While the gaze-cueing paradigm has been successful in investigating the relationship between adopting the intentional stance toward robots and attention orienting to gaze cues, it is unclear if the repetitiveness of the gaze-cueing paradigm influences adopting the intentional stance. Here, we examined if the duration of exposure to repetitive robot gaze behavior in a gaze-cueing task has a negative impact on subjective attribution of intentionality. Participants performed a short, medium, or long face-to-face gaze-cueing paradigm with an embodied robot while subjective ratings were collected pre and post the interaction. Results show that participants in the long exposure condition had the smallest change in their intention attribution scores, if any, while those in the short exposure condition had a positive change in their intention attribution, indicating that participants attributed more intention to the robot after short interactions. The results also show that attention orienting to robot gaze-cues was positively related to how much intention was attributed to the robot, but this relationship became more negative as the length of exposure increased. In contrast to subjective ratings, the gaze-cueing effects (GCEs) increased as a function of the duration of exposure to repetitive behavior. The data suggest a tradeoff between the desired number of trials needed for observing various mechanisms of social cognition, such as GCEs, and the likelihood of adopting the intentional stance toward a robot.
Highlights
Humans rely on non-verbal behavior to interact with one another
Prior studies (e.g., Marchesi et al, 2019) have uncovered instances where people do adopt the intentional stance toward humanoid robots, here we ask if certain procedures used in experimental design can create obstacles for measuring the intentional stance in human–robot interaction (HRI)
The aim of the current study was to examine if the duration of exposure to a humanoid robot’s repetitive behavior in a gazecueing task influences adopting the intentional stance toward it, and if adopting of the intentional stance correlates with the gaze-cueing effects (GCEs) depending on the duration of exposure to repetitive behavior
Summary
When we observing someone looking at an apple, we infer that that person is hungry. This process, in which people make inferences about what others are thinking, is called mentalizing (Baron-Cohen, 1995), and is essential for successful human social interactions (Frith and Frith, 2006). While it is assumed that when humans interact with one another they adopt the intentional stance (i.e., they explain and predict others’ behaviors with reference to their underlying thoughts, feelings, and intentions), an interesting question remains if (and when) people adopt the intentional stance toward artificial agents that resemble humans, such as humanoid robots. Prior studies (e.g., Marchesi et al, 2019) have uncovered instances where people do adopt the intentional stance toward humanoid robots, here we ask if certain procedures used in experimental design can create obstacles for measuring the intentional stance in human–robot interaction (HRI)
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