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A “head-like” component of a terrestrial robot promotes anxiety-like and defensive behaviors

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Abstract

Recognizing threats is a vital ability in social interactions across the animal kingdom. Yet, the role of specific perceptual elements, especially the head-body silhouette in aversive situations, remains relatively unexplored. In our study, we investigated the modulation of defensive behavior in rats facing a four-wheeled robot designed to simulate a natural predator. The robot featured an inflatable top allowing instant changes in appearance. In Experiment 1, rats encountered the head-inflatable robot (HEAD) in two sessions – a training session, where the rats were sequentially chased by the robot in both head-deflated (HEAD-Off) and head-inflated (HEAD-On) states, and a test session with a stationary HEAD-On or HEAD-Off robot 3 weeks later to assess long-term behavioral changes. The rats displayed reduced velocity and exploration in the center area during the HEAD-On phase of the training session. During the test session, the rats maintained a greater distance from the stationary HEAD-On robot than from the HEAD-Off robot, indicating sustained alertness based on the memory of the previous threat encounter. In Experiment 2, an identical procedure with the body-inflatable robot (BODY) was conducted. No significant differences emerged between BODY-On and BODY-Off conditions, except for a slight reduction in movement velocity during the BODY-On phase in the training session. Considering the substantial difference in behavioral reactions to HEAD-On versus BODY-On robots, we concluded that the emergence of head-like component in a chasing robot produced heightened vigilance and alertness. Since the two types of robots adopted a minimal design and differ only by the position of the inflatable top portion, our findings highlight the significant impact of a clearly recognizable head-like component in a threat encounter. The head-body silhouette provides a key perceptual framework for designing a social robot, with implications for both animal-robot and human–robot interactions.

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Data availability

All codes and analysis scripts used in the current study is available online at https://github.com/knowblesse/Gudaihead. Video and processed behavior data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Part of this work utilized ChatGPT (v4) in grammar correction and refining the clarity of the writing.

Funding

This research is funded by National Research Foundation of Korea (2021M3E5D2A01023887).

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Author notes

  1. Ji Hoon Jeong, Kyeong Im Jo have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Korea University, Anam-Ro 145, Seoul, 02841, Republic of Korea

    Ji Hoon Jeong, Kyeong Im Jo & June-Seek Choi

  2. Department of Neuroscience, Yale University, 100 College St, New Haven, CT, 06510, USA

    Ji Hoon Jeong

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conceptualization and writing. JJ: robot hardware/software design and building, data analysis. KJ: investigation, animal surgery and experimentation. JC: supervision, reviewing and editing, and funding acquisition. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to June-Seek Choi.

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The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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All experiment procedures involving animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Korea University (KUIACUC-2023–0050).

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Jeong, J.H., Jo, K.I. & Choi, JS. A “head-like” component of a terrestrial robot promotes anxiety-like and defensive behaviors. Intel Serv Robotics 17, 1019–1030 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11370-024-00552-3

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