Perception, acceptance, and the social construction of robots-Exploratory studies

Abstract

In order to investigate social robots’ images and approval and/or rejection, we conducted two pre-studies and two studies combining qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first pre–study, we attempted to capture the images of robots in our minds as indicators of their social representation. The second pre-study tried to contrast the acceptance of robots in general among non-experienced users with their acceptance of specific robotic instances. In the first study, we aimed to quantitatively shed light on the relationship between the acceptance of robots. The users’ demographics and their earlier robotic experience on one hand, and the robots’ functionalities, interactional capacities, and physical appearance on the other. Finally, in the last study, we aimed to track the shiftfrom adyadic to a triadic relationship with a robot by observing the interaction between pairs of participants and a robot in an experimental setting. Our four studies provide support for previous academic findings, but also question others opening up the floor for novel research horizons.