Investigating User Preferences for In-Vehicle Virtual Robots’ Anthropomorphic Appearance in Augmented Reality Head-Up Display

Abstract

As an interactive medium between drivers and vehicles, in-vehicle virtual robots significantly impact user performance and experience. Among them, those robots that have anthropomorphic appearances are the mainstream. As an emerging human-vehicle interaction interface, Augmented Reality Head-Up Display (AR-HUD) still has not been used to showcase in-vehicle virtual robots. For this reason, it is currently unclear what preferences users have for the anthropomorphic appearance of virtual robots when using AR-HUD. In this work, we conducted two experimental online studies focusing on two aspects of anthropomorphic appearance: human similarity and morphological completeness. A total of 257 participants’ valid data sets were collected. Participants rated the in-vehicle virtual robot’s anthropomorphic appearance on five preference dimensions on Pleasure, Fear, Trust, Comprehensibility, and Acceptance dimensions. We found that users prefer appearances of virtual robots with medium human similarity and high morphological completeness, which aligns with the current theories on robot appearance. Our future research will focus on developing and validating design principles for the appearances of in-vehicle virtual robots.