Anthropomorphization of an Object by Displaying Robot

Abstract

This study proposes a system named "displaying robot" which anthropomorphize an environmental object. Although there are many studies on anthropomorphic agents to communicate with humans about an environmental object, a communication becomes irritating because we need to communicate with agents additionally. On the other hand, displaying robot is attachable device which imitates human body parts for anthropomorphization. Since displaying robot anthropomorphizes an environmental object itself, it can conduct task-related communication without additional anthropomorphic agents. We design one of the displaying robots using two eyes, named "Iris-board" which is attached to home appliances or furniture. We conducted an experiment to verify the effectiveness of a body image with attaching Iris-board to a home appliance. The result indicated that there is a significant difference between anthropomorphized home appliance and normal home appliance