Embodiment, Situatedness, and Morphology for Humanoid Robots Interacting with People

Abstract

The aim of human-robot interaction (HRI) is that people intuitively understand robots. When integrating humanoid robots into our daily lives, a myriad of factors can influence how a person perceives and interacts with a robot. Particularly, humanoid robots’ embodiment, situatedness, and morphology can individually and collectively affect the interactions between a person and robot, including the utilitarian and aesthetic factors of the robot’s physical design. It is therefore necessary to investigate how humanoid design choices impact a robots functions in society. In this chapter, we discuss what it means for a robot to be embodied, situated, and to have morphology. Further, we consider relevant HRI research alongside research that underscores the need for roboticists to integrate embodied cognition, situatedness, and morphology in robotic design. For example, research findings demonstrate a materially embodied design that accounts for situatedness as a necessary element for eliciting positive perception of a robot agent. Moreover, we expand on the need for the robotics field to extend its empirical research with varying degrees of implementation that disassociate and control for design factors to distinguish which particular elements provoke positive, neutral, or negative effects in HRI. Without a more robust literature base to discern the most effective forms of robotics within commonplace applications, it will be difficult to know if the applied robotic forms achieve the most compelling HRI.