EMPIRICAL RESULTS ON DETERMINANTS OF ACCEPTANCE AND EMOTION ATTRIBUTION IN CONFRONTATION WITH A ROBOT RABBIT

Abstract

As robots increasingly enter people's everyday lives, it becomes ever more important to explore the conditions and determinants of acceptance of human interactions with these devices. Moreover, a positive feeling associated with the interaction with robots is a precondition for the user's willingness to engage in further interactions and establish long-term relationships. This article presents empirical results from two studies that focus on the user's perception of the robot rabbit Nabaztag, a small WiFi-enabled device with movable ears, integrated RFID reader functionality, and speech-synthesis capability. In the first study, 53 participants were confronted with a range of the Nabaztag's functionality, and, using RFID cards, they interacted with the rabbit. The analysis of people's answers concerning Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness as well as hedonic and pragmatic aspects, showed gender-accorded differences regarding the evaluation of the device. Neither the degree of familiarity with computers nor the fact of whether technical disfunctionality occurred during the trial influenced the evaluation of the robot, while ownership of a robotic toy let people evaluate the Nabaztag more positively. The second study took a more detailed observance of the effect of the rabbit's expression by its ears. In a within-subjects setting, a German (N = 100) and a U.S. American sample (N = 111) were asked to rate the rabbit's current emotional status from pictures that showed the rabbit with a variety of six different ear positions. Results indicate that people infer specific emotional states from the robot rabbit's different ear positions. Also illustrated is that observers' attribution of feelings to the rabbit depends on their cultural backgrounds. Implications and questions for future research are discussed.