Nikolaos Mavridis | National Center For Scientific Research “Demokritos”
Robots seemingly in possession of an experiential mind, as well as humans allegedly incapable thereof, have been reported to elicit feelings of eeriness in their perceivers. The current work re-examined this claim, asking participants to rate both robots and humans in various social situations regarding their mind capacities (e.g., emotional capability, intelligence), non-mind qualities (e.g., animacy, usefulness), and overall appeal (e.g., eeriness, likeability). It was found that feelings of eeriness towards both targets formed a distinct emotional response that was separable from simple dislike. Yet, unexpectedly, eeriness towards both targets intensified, the less they were seen as possessing a typical human mind. For robots, however, this association was less consistent. Moreover, eeriness towards robots, but not towards humans, was most strongly predicted by a lack of perceived usefulness. These results indicate that mind attributions affect people’s attitudes towards each other more strongly than their attitudes towards humanoid robots.
Amirabdollahian, F., Dautenhahn, K., Dixon, C., Eder, K., Fisher, M., Koay, K. L., Magid, E., Pipe, T., Salem, M., Saunders, J., & Webster, M.
(2013) Can you trust your robotic assistant?Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 82391, 571–573.
Barrett, J. L., & Johnson, A. H.
(2003) The role of control in attributing intentional agency to inanimate objects. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 31, 208–221.
Bartneck, C.
(2013) Robots in the theatre and the media. In: Proceedings of the Design & Semantics of Form & Movement (DeSForM2013), Wuxi, August 2013, Philips, 64–70.
Bartneck, C., Kanda, T., Ishiguro, H., & Hagita, N.
(2009) My robotic doppelganger: A critical look at the uncanny valley theory. In Proceedings of the 18th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication (pp. 269–276). Toyama, Japan.
Bartneck, C., Kulić, D., Croft, E., & Zoghbi, S.
(2009) Measurement instruments for anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety of robots. International Journal of Social Robotics, 11, 71–81.
Beck, A., Stevens, B., Bard, K. A., & Caǹamero, L.
(2012) Emotional body language displayed by artificial agents. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 21, 1–29.
Breazeal, C., & Scassellati, B.
(1999) How to build robots that make friends and influence people. Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 858–863.
Breuer, T., Giorgana Macedo, G. R., Hartanto, R., Hochgeschwender, N., Holz, D., Hegger, F.et al.
(2012) Johnny: An autonomous service robot for domestic environments. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, 661, 245–272.
Broadbent, E., Kumar, V., Li, X., Sollers 3rd, J., Stafford, R. Q., MacDonald, B. A., Wegner, D. M.
(2013) Robots with display screens: A robot with a more humanlike face display is perceived to have more mind and a better personality. PLoS One, 81, e72589.
Broadbent, E., Stafford, R., & MacDonald, B.
(2009) Acceptance of healthcare robots for the older population: Review and future directions. International Journal of Social Robotics, 11, 319–330.
Cangelosi, A.
(2010) Grounding language in action and perception: From cognitive agents to humanoid robots. Physics of Life Reviews, 71, 139–151.
Chammat, M., Foucher, A., Nadel, J., & Dubal, S.
(2010) Reading sadness beyond human faces. Brain Research, 13481, 95–104.
Cheetham, M., Suter, P., & Jäncke, L.
(2011) The human likeness dimension of the “uncanny valley hypothesis”: Behavioral and functional MRI findings. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 51, Article 126.
Cohen, I., Looije, R., & Neerincx, M. A.
(2014) Child’s perception of robot’s emotions: Effects of platform, context, and experience. International Journal of Social Robotics, 61, 507–518.
Cross, E. S., Liepelt, R., de Hamilton, A. F. de C., Parkinson, J., Ramsey, R., Stadler, W., & Prinz, W.
(2012) Robotic movement preferentially engages the action observation network. Human Brain Mapping, 331, 2238–2254.
Dautenhahn, K.
(2007) Socially intelligent robots: Dimensions of human-robot interaction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London Series B, 3621, 679–704.
Dautenhahn, K.
(2014) Human-Robot Interaction. In M. Soegaard, R. F. Dam (Eds.). The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd ed). Aarhus, Denmark: The Interaction Design Foundation.
Dautenhahn, K., Woods, S., Kaouri, C., Walters, M., Koay, K. L., & Werry, I.
(2005) What is a robot companion – friend, assistant or butler? Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 1192–1197.
Dominey, P. F., & Warneken, F.
(2011) The basis of shared intentions in human and robot cognition. New Ideas in Psychology, 291, 260–274.
Enders, C. K., & Tofighi, D.
(2007) Centering predictor variables in cross-sectional multilevel models: A new look at an old issue. Psychological Methods, 121, 121–138.
Epley, N., Akalis, S., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T.
(2008a) Creating social connection through inferential reproduction. Loneliness and perceived agency in gadgets, gods, and greyhounds. Psychological Science, 191, 114–120.
Epley, N., Waytz, A., Akalis, S., & Cacioppo, J. T.
(2008b) When we need a human: Motivational determinants of anthropomorphism. Social Cognition, 261, 143–155.
Epley, N., Waytz, A., & Cacioppo, J. T.
(2007) On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review, 1141, 864–886.
Erden, M. S.
(2013) Emotional postures for the humanoid robot Nao. International Journal of Social Robotics, 51, 441–456.
Evans, J.R., & Mathur, A.
(2005) The value of online surveys. Internet Research, 151, 195–219.
Fink, J.
(2012) Anthropomorphism and human likeness in the design of robots and human-robot interaction. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social Robotics, 76211, 199–208.
Flandorfer, P.
(2012) Population aging and socially assistive robots for elderly persons: The importance of sociodemographic factors for user acceptance. International Journal of Population Research, Article 829835.
Galinsky, A. D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Magee, J. C.
(2003) From power to action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 851, 453–466.
Ge, J., & Han, S.
(2008) Distinct neurocognitive strategies for comprehensions of human and artificial intelligence. PLoS One, 31, e2797.
Gray, H. M., Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M.
(2007) Dimensions of mind perception. Science, 3151, 619.
Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M.
(2009) Moral typecasting: Divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 961, 505–520.
Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M.
(2012) Feeling robots and human zombies: Mind perception and the Uncanny Valley. Cognition, 1251, 125–130.
Goetz, J., Kiesler, S., & Powers, A.
(2003) Matching robot appearance and behavior to tasks to improve human – robot cooperation. In: Proceedings of the 12th IEEE international workshop on robot and human interactive communication, 55–60.
Hallgren, I.
(2012) Seeing agents when we need to, attributing experience when we feel like it. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 31, 369–382.
Hanson, D.
(2006) Exploring the aesthetic range for humanoid robots. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the ICCS/CogSci-2006 Long Symposium: Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science, Vancouver.
Harder, M., Polani, D., & Nehaniv, C. L.
(2010) Two agents acting as one. In H. Fellermann, M. Dorr & M. M. Hanczyc (Eds.). Proceedings of Artificial Life XII (pp. 599–606). Boston: MIT Press.
Heck, R. H., Thomas, S. L., & Tabata, L. N.
(2014) Multilevel and longitudinal modeling with IBM SPSS. New York, NY: Routledge.
Hindriks, K., Neerincx, M. A., & Vink, M.
(2012) The icat as a natural interaction partner. Advances Agent Technology: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 70681, 212–231.
Ho, C. C., & MacDorman, K. F.
(2010) Revisiting the Uncanny Valley theory: Developing and validating an alternative to the Godspeed indices. Computers in Human Behavior, 261, 1508–1518.
Ho, C.-C., MacDorman, K., & Pramono, Z. A. D.
(2008) Human emotion and the uncanny valley: A GLM, MDS, and ISOMAP analysis of robot video ratings. In Proceedings of the third ACM/IEEE international conference on human – robot interaction (pp. 169–176). March 11–14, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Jack, A. I., & Robbins, P.
(2012) The phenomenal stance revisited. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 31, 383–403.
Joose, M., Lohse, M., Perez, J. G., & Evers, V.
(2013) What you do is who you are: The role of task context in perceived social robot personality. Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2134–2139.
Ju, W., & Takayama, L.
(2011) Should robots or people do these jobs? A survey of robotics experts and non-experts about which jobs robots should do. Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2452–2459.
Kamide, H., Takubo, T., Ohara, K., Mae, Y., & Arai, T.
(2014) Impressions of humanoids: The development of a measure for evaluating a humanoid. Journal of Social Robotics, 61, 33–44.
Kaplan, F.
(2004) Who is afraid of the humanoid? Investigating cultural differences in the acceptance of robots. International Journal of Humanoid Robotics, 11, 465–480.
Kay, A. C., Moscovitch, D. A., & Laurin, K.
(2010) Randomness, attributions of arousal, and belief in God. Psychological Science, 211, 216–218.
Knobe, J., & Prinz, J.
(2008) Intuitions about consciousness. Experimental studies. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 71, 67–83.
Koay, K. L., Walters, M. L., May, A.Dumitriu, A., Christianson, B., Burke, N., & Dautenhahn, K.
(2013) Exploring robot etiquette: Refining a HRI home companion scenario based on feedback from two artists who lived with robots in the UH robot house. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 82391, 290–300.
(2008) Can machines think? Interaction and perspective taking with robots investigated via fMRI. PLoS One, 31, e2597.
Krämer, N. C., von der Pütten, A., & Eimer, S.
(2012) Human-agent and human-robot interaction theory: Similarities to and differences from human-human interaction. In: M. Zacarias, J. V. de Oliveira (Eds.). Human-Computer Interactions (pp. 215–240). Springer Verlag: Berlin Heidelberg.
Kuhlmeier, V. A., Bloom, P., & Wynn, K.
(2004) Do 5-month-old infants see humans as material objects?Cognition, 941, 95–103.
Le, Q. A., Hanoune, S., & Pelachaud, C.
(2011) Design and implementation of an expressive gesture model for a humanoid robot. Proceedings of the IEEE/RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 134–140.
Lee, S., Lau, I. Y., & Hong, Y.
(2011) Effects of appearance and functions on likeability and perceived occupational suitability of robots. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 51, 232–250.
Li, D., Rau, P., & Li, Y.
(2010) A cross-cultural study: Effect of robot appearance and task. International Journal of Social Robotics, 21, 175–186.
Meltzoff, A. N., Brooks, R., Shon, A. P., & Rao, R. P. N.
(2010) Social robots are psychological agents for infants: A test of gaze following. Neural Networks, 231, 966–972.
Mitchell, R. W., & Hamm, M.
(1997) The interpretation of animal psychology: Anthropomorphism or behavior reading?Behavior, 1341, 173–204.
Mori, M.
(1970) Bukimi no tani [The Uncanny Valley]. Energy, 71, 33–35.
Norenzayan, A., & Hansen, I. G.
(2006) Belief in supernatural agents in the face of death. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 321, 174–187.
Nourbakhsh, I. R.
(2013) Robot futures. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Patel, H., & MacDorman, K. F.
(2015) Sending an avatar to do a human’s job: Compliance with authority persists despite the uncanny valley. Presence, 241, 1–23.
Piwek, L., McKay, L. S., & Pollick, F. E.
(2014) Empirical evaluation of the Uncanny Valley hypothesis fails to confirm the predicted effect of motion. Cognition, 1301, 271–277.
Prakash, A., & Rogers, W. A.
(2015) Why some humanoid faces are perceived more positively than others: Effects of human-likeness and task. International Journal of Social Robotics, 71, 309–331.
Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S.
(2002) Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.1). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(2009) Looking forward to sociable robots. International Journal of Social Robotics, 11, 249–260.
Syrdal, D., Dautenhahn, K., Koay, K., & Walters, M.
(2009) The negative attitudes towards robots scale and reactions to robot behaviour in a live human-robot interaction study. Proceedings of the AISB Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 109–115). April8–9. Edinburgh, UK.
Syrdal, D. S., Nomura, T., & Dautenhahn, K.
(2013) The Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire – Results from a quantitative cross-cultural survey. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 82391, 270–279.
Sytsma, J., & Machery, E.
(2010) Two conceptions of subjective experience. Philosophical Studies, 1511, 299–327.
Tanaka, F., Cicourel, A., & Movellan, J. R.
(2007) Socialization between toddlers and robots at an early childhood education center. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1041, 17954–17958.
Thompson, J. C., Trafton, J. G., & McKnight, P.
(2011) The perception of humanness from the movements of synthetic agents. Perception, 401, 695–704.
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H.
(2005) Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 281, 675–735.
Vogeley, K., & Bente, G.
(2010) “Artificial humans”: Psychology and neuroscience perspectives on embodiment and nonverbal communication. Neural Networks, 231, 1077–1090.
Walters, M. L., Koay, K. L., Syrdal, D. S., Campbell, A., & Dautenhahn, K.
(2013) Companion robots for elderlyg people: Using theatre to investigate potential users‘ view. International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (Ro-Man 2013), IEEE, 691–696.
Walters, M. L., Lohse, M., Hanheide, M., Wrede, B., Syrdal, D. S., Koay, K. L., Green, A., Hüttenrauch, H., Dautenhahn, K., Sagerer, G. & Severinson-Eklundh, K.
(2011) Evaluating the robot personality and verbal behavior of domestic robots using video-based studies. Advanced Robotics, 251, 2233–2254.
Walters, M. L., Syrdal, D. S., Dautenhaun, K., te Boekhorst, R., & Koay, K. L.
(2008) Avoiding the Uncanny Valley: robot appearance, personality, and consistency of behavior in an attention-seeking home scenario for a robot companion. Autonomous Robots, 241, 159–178.
Wang, Y., & Quadflieg, S.
(2015) In our own image? Emotional and neural processing differences when observing human-human versus human-robot interactions. Social Cognitive And Affective Neuroscience, 101, 1515–1524.
Waytz, A., Gray, K., Epley, N., & Wegner, D. M.
(2010) Causes and consequences of mind perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 141, 383–388.
Waytz, A., Morewedge, C. K., Epley, N., Monteleone, G., Gao, J. H., & Cacioppo, J. T.
(2010) Making sense by making sentient: Effectance motivation increases anthropomorphism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 991, 410–435.
Waytz, A., & Norton, M. I.
(2014) Botsourcing and outsourcing: Robot, British, Chinese, and German workers are for thinking – not feeling – jobs. Emotion, 141, 434–444.
Wojciszke, B., & Abele, A. E.
(2008) The primacy of communion over agency and its reversals in evaluations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 381, 139–1147.
Young, J. E., Hawkins, R., Sharlin, E., & Igarashi, T.
(2009) Toward acceptable domestic robots: Applying insights from social psychology. International Journal of Social Robotics, 11, 95–108.
Zlotowski, J. A., Proudfoot, D., Yogeeswaran, K., & Bartneck, C.
(2015) Anthropomorphism: Opportunities and challenges in human-robot interactions. International Journal of Social Robotics, 71, 347–360.
Zlotowski, J. A., Strasser, E., & Bartneck, C.
(2014) Dimensions of anthropomorphism – from humanness to humanlikeness. Proceedings of the ACM / IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 66–73.
Zlotowski, J. A., Sumioka, H., Nishio, S., Glas, D. F., Bartneck, C., & Ishiguro, H.
(2015) Persistence of the uncanny valley: The influence of repeated interactions and a robot’s attitude on its perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 61, Article 883.
Cited by
Cited by 7 other publications
Guingrich, Rose E. & Michael S. A. Graziano
2024. Ascribing consciousness to artificial intelligence: human-AI interaction and its carry-over effects on human-human interaction. Frontiers in Psychology 15
Oravec, Jo Ann
2022. Dramaturgical and Ethical Approaches to the Dark Side: An Introduction. In Good Robot, Bad Robot [Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, ], ► pp. 11 ff.
Oravec, Jo Ann
2022. Negative Dimensions of Human-Robot and Human-AI Interactions: Frightening Legacies, Emerging Dysfunctions, and Creepiness. In Good Robot, Bad Robot [Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI, ], ► pp. 39 ff.
Quadflieg, Susanne & Ian S. Penton-Voak
2017. The Emerging Science of People-Watching: Forming Impressions From Third-Party Encounters. Current Directions in Psychological Science 26:4 ► pp. 383 ff.
Quadflieg, Susanne & Kirsten Westmoreland
2019. Making Sense of Other People’s Encounters: Towards an Integrative Model of Relational Impression Formation. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 43:2 ► pp. 233 ff.
Saunderson, Shane & Goldie Nejat
2019. It Would Make Me Happy if You Used My Guess: Comparing Robot Persuasive Strategies in Social Human–Robot Interaction. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 4:2 ► pp. 1707 ff.
Thellman, Sam, Maartje de Graaf & Tom Ziemke
2022. Mental State Attribution to Robots: A Systematic Review of Conceptions, Methods, and Findings. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction 11:4 ► pp. 1 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.