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About

Miki Watanabe is a pioneering researcher in human-robot interaction, with a primary focus on the social acceptance and functional roles of androids in real-world settings. Her work investigates whether highly humanlike robots can be perceived as social entities and effectively perform roles traditionally reserved for people, such as salespersons. In her most cited study, "Can Androids Be Salespeople in the Real World?" (57 citations), she conducted field experiments demonstrating that androids can be recognized as social agents in commercial environments, challenging assumptions about the limits of robotic social presence. Watanabe’s research extends to developing gesture-generation architectures for conversational humanoid robots, aiming to enhance their communicative naturalness for applications in elder care and daily life support. Her field studies at department stores provide empirical evidence that androids can engage visitors and fulfill service roles, contributing to the growing discourse on human-robot coexistence. With a career marked by innovative real-world experimentation, Watanabe’s work has laid important groundwork for deploying social robots in public spaces, influencing both robotic design and our understanding of human perceptions of artificial beings.