Touched by robots: effects of physical contact and proactiveness

Abstract

Even though robots' physical embodiment makes it likely humans will come into physical contact with robots, the effects of touch on attitudes in human-robot interaction are still relatively unknown. This survey and video-based, experiment (N=199) investigates the effects of touch and robots interactions. Results show that physical contact and autonomous behavior interact in their effects on perceived machine-likeness and dependability. Attitudes towards robots in general also affected the influence of touch on perceptions of a robot.