Attitude towards robots depends on interaction but not on anticipatory behavior

Abstract:

The care robot of the future should be able to navigate in domestic environments and perform meaningful tasks. Presumably, a robot that moves and interacts more intelligently gains more trust, is liked more and appears more humanlike. Here we test in three scenarios of differing urgency whether anticipatory walking behaviour of a robot is appreciated as more intelligent and whether this results in a more positive attitude towards the robot. We find no effect of walking behaviour and a main effect of urgency of the scenarios on perceived intelligence and on appropriateness. We interpret these results as that the type of interaction determines perceived intelligence and the attitude towards robots, but the degree of anticipation has no significant effect.