Seeing Minds in Others – Can Agents with Robotic Appearance Have Human-Like Preferences?

dc.contributor.authorMartini, Molly C.
dc.contributor.authorGonzalez, Christian A.
dc.contributor.authorWiese, Eva
dc.date.accessioned2016-08-09T00:04:07Z
dc.date.available2016-08-09T00:04:07Z
dc.date.issued2016-01-08
dc.description.abstractAscribing mental states to non-human agents has been shown to increase their likeability and lead to better joint-task performance in human-robot interaction (HRI). However, it is currently unclear what physical features non-human agents need to possess in order to trigger mind attribution and whether different aspects of having a mind (e.g., feeling pain, being able to move) need different levels of human-likeness before they are readily ascribed to non-human agents. The current study addresses this issue by modeling how increasing the degree of human-like appearance (on a spectrum from mechanistic to humanoid to human) changes the likelihood by which mind is attributed towards non-human agents. We also test whether different internal states (e.g., being hungry, being alive) need different degrees of humanness before they are ascribed to non-human agents. The results suggest that the relationship between physical appearance and the degree to which mind is attributed to non-human agents is best described as a two-linear model with no change in mind attribution on the spectrum from mechanistic to humanoid robot, but a significant increase in mind attribution as soon as human features are included in the image. There seems to be a qualitative difference in the perception of mindful versus mindless agents given that increasing human-like appearance alone does not increase mind attribution until a certain threshold is reached, that is: agents need to be classified as having a mind first before the addition of more human-like features significantly increases the degree to which mind is attributed to that agent.
dc.description.sponsorshipPublication of this article was funded in part by the George Mason University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.
dc.identifier.citationMartini MC, Gonzalez CA, Wiese E (2016) Seeing Minds in Others – Can Agents with Robotic Appearance Have Human-Like Preferences? PLoS ONE 11(1): e0146310. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146310
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146310
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1920/10332
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherPublic Library of Science
dc.subjectBehavior
dc.subjectCognition
dc.subjectPain sensation
dc.subjectAgent-based modeling
dc.subjectEmotions
dc.subjectRobots
dc.subjectRobotics
dc.subjectPerception
dc.titleSeeing Minds in Others – Can Agents with Robotic Appearance Have Human-Like Preferences?
dc.typeArticle

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