The influence of robot anthropomorphism on the feelings of embarrassment when interacting with robots

Medical robots are expected to help with providing care in an aging society. The degree to which patients experience embarrassment in a medical examination might be influenced by the robots’ level of anthropomorphism. The results of our preliminary study show that young, healthy, Dutch university students were less embarrassed when interacting with a technical box than with a robot. Highly human-like robots might therefore not be the best choice for a medical robot. This result also shows that the robot was perceived as a person more so than the technical box. The next step is to compare the robot to a real nurse or doctor. If patients are less embarrassed when interacting with a robot, then, potentially, patients will be less likely to defer important medical examinations when carried out by medical robots.

[1]  Takanori Shibata,et al.  Effects of robot-assisted activity for elderly people and nurses at a day service center , 2004, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[2]  Peter Robinson,et al.  How anthropomorphism affects empathy toward robots , 2009, 2009 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[3]  Li-Ming Su,et al.  The RoboConsultant: telementoring and remote presence in the operating room during minimally invasive urologic surgeries using a novel mobile robotic interface. , 2007, Urology.

[4]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction , 2007 .

[5]  Alois Knoll,et al.  The roles of haptic-ostensive referring expressions in cooperative, task-based human-robot dialogue , 2008, 2008 3rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[6]  W. H. Jones,et al.  Assessment of dispositional embarrassability , 1997 .

[7]  D. Keltner.  Signs of appeasement: evidence for the distinct displays of embarrassment, amusement, and shame , 1995 .

[8]  Don A. Cozzetto.  Quantitative Research in Public Administration , 1994 .

[9]  Christoph Bartneck,et al.  Shaping human-robot interaction: understanding the social aspects of intelligent robotic products , 2004, CHI EA '04.

[10]  Susan R. Fussell,et al.  Comparing a computer agent with a humanoid robot , 2007, 2007 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[11]  C. Harris.  Embarrassment : A form of social pain , 2006 .

[12]  Allen R. Hanson,et al.  Mobile manipulators for assisted living in residential settings , 2008, Auton. Robots.

[13]  Joseph Dumit,et al.  Cyborg babies : from techno-sex to techno-tots , 1998 .

[14]  Marco Costa,et al.  Social Presence, Embarrassment, and Nonverbal Behavior , 2001 .

[15]  Rowland S. Miller.  Embarrassment: Poise and Peril in Everyday Life , 1996 .

[16]  Takayuki Kanda,et al.  What is a Human? - Toward Psychological Benchmarks in the Field of Human-Robot Interaction , 2006, ROMAN 2006 - The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[17]  Takayuki Kanda,et al.  The perception of animacy and intelligence based on a robot's embodiment , 2007, 2007 7th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots.