Do People Ascribe Similar Emotions to Real and Robotic Dog Tails?

Abstract

This paper uses a questionnaire to analyse whether humans can determine simulated emotions in a robot tail and discusses the implications of doing so. The questionnaire, which was open for 3 weeks, asked participants to watch 4 short videos on dog tail movement and 4 short videos on robot tail movement and to pick one of 12 emotions they thought the tail was showing. The robot tail copied the movement of the dog tails, which the participants weren’t made aware of. The possible answers were kept the same for every question, and were split into 4 groups of 3 emotions, with each group containing similar emotions. Results were very positive, with most participants (63.8%) answering within the same group for at least 2 of the 4 pairs, and 87.9% answering within the same group for at least 1 pair, which suggests that humans can determine simulated emotions using a robotic tail. Potential applications of this study include new ways for Human-Robot Interaction to take place, in robots such as companion robots or entertainment robots, and for further research to be completed, such as how accurate participants’ answers are when a robotic tail is used in conjunction with other forms of communication. Thus, this study may be of significance to the field.