Can I get your (robot) attention? Human sensitivity to subtle hints of human-likeness in a humanoid robot’s behavior

Abstract

Designing artificial agents that can closely imitate human behavior, might influence humans in perceiving them as intentional agents. Nonetheless, the factors that are crucial for an artificial agent to be perceived as an animated and anthropomorphic being still need to be addressed. In the current study, we investigated some of the factors that might affect the perception of a robot's behavior as human-like or intentional. To meet this aim, seventy-nine participants were exposed to two different behaviors of a humanoid robot under two different instructions. Before the experiment, participants' biases towards robotics as well as their personality traits were assessed. Our results suggest that participants’ sensitivity to human-likeness relies more on their expectations rather than on perceptual cues.