Sit, Down, Stay! The Comparison of Virtual, Robotic, and Live Entities for Human-Animal and Human-Technology Interactions

The advancement of technology has made an immense impact on our society today, explicitly using games as a teaching and training tool. In the current study, researchers examined the perceptual differences between a live, video game, and robotic pet. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three entities and asked to interact with the entity in two different scenarios; free-play and specific training commands. Researchers measured the perceived workload differences for each condition. There are individual differences in perceived mental demand, temporal demand, and performance across the three entity types. The result of this research focuses on comparing individual differences and how they can contribute to or hinder learning and interaction in a live, game based, or robotics scenario. This has important implications for the domain of pet training as well as human-animal and human-technology interactions as a whole.

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