Robot face memorability is affected by uncanny appearance

Abstract

Human face recognition is influenced by various social and environmental constructs. For example, both age and race can affect the likelihood that a human face will be correctly recalled. General face appearance (i.e. friendly or untrustworthy faces) can also influence memorability. As human-robot interaction (HRI) becomes more commonplace, understanding what factors influence face recognition for non-human social agents is increasingly important. In particular, while there is a growing literature comparing the recognition of real human faces to computer-generated face images, comparisons between human face processing and robot face processing are largely unexplored. Here, we examined how the uncanny/eeriness of robot-faces affects memorability by using a 2AFC old/new task with various robot faces. Participants rated robot and human faces on perceived uncanniness during a study phase and were subsequently given a surprise memory task with only a fraction of the previously-encountered robot faces. Our results demonstrate that robots who are rated as more uncanny are more memorable than those that do not elicit the eerie feelings that correspond with uncanny faces: The more uncanny the robot face, the more accurately and quickly they were recalled. We discuss these results in the context of the design of social agents for HRI and also vis-a-vis theories of human face recognition and memory.