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Knock on Wood: The Effects of Material Choice on the Perception of Social Robots

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Social Robotics (ICSR 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11876))

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Abstract

Many people who interact with robots in the near future will not have prior experience, and they are likely to intuitively form their first impressions of the robot based on its appearance. This paper explores the effects of component material on people’s perception of the robots in terms of social attributes and willingness to interact. Participants watched videos of three robots with different outer materials: wood, synthetic fur, and plastic. The results showed that people rated the perceived warmth of a plastic robot lower than a wooden or furry robot. Ratings of perceived competence and discomfort did not differ between the three robots.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Videos are available at bit.ly/2IsnMSW, bit.ly/2Iph28i, bit.ly/2L1vBAz.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially funded by a grant from the Swedish Research Council (reg. number 2017-05189).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sanne van Waveren, Linnéa Björklund, Elizabeth J. Carter & Iolanda Leite

Authors
  1. Sanne van Waveren
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  2. Linnéa Björklund
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  3. Elizabeth J. Carter
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  4. Iolanda Leite
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sanne van Waveren .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Robotics Lab, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganés, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel A. Salichs

  2. The National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Shuzhi Sam Ge

  3. Faculty of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands

    Emilia Ivanova Barakova

  4. Mechanical & Industrial, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    John-John Cabibihan

  5. Department of Aerospace Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Alan R. Wagner

  6. Robotics Lab - Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganés, Madrid, Spain

    Álvaro Castro-González

  7. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA

    Hongsheng He

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van Waveren, S., Björklund, L., Carter, E.J., Leite, I. (2019). Knock on Wood: The Effects of Material Choice on the Perception of Social Robots. In: Salichs, M., et al. Social Robotics. ICSR 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11876. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35888-4_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35888-4_20

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