Psychological Evaluation on Influence of Appearance and Synchronizing Operation of Android Robot

This paper describes the influence of the appearance and synchronizing operation of android to the extension of “personal space” from an operator to the android. We proposed a hypothesis that the extension of personal space from an operator to the android is affected by their agency and sympathy to the android. To verify this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment (1) in which an experimenter approached the android robots and unhuman-like robot to the intimate distance after male/female participant became familiar with the synchronized operation. The SCR (Skin Conductance Response) signal of the operator was measured as an indication of psychological or physiological arousal of the operator. The fluctuation of SCR was observed as reactions to stimuli of another person closely approaching the same gender android that is controlled to be synchronizing with the operator. As a result, the SCR in the android synchronous motion condition was significantly larger than the android/unhuman-like robot no motion condition.

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