Abstract
To date, research into the potential impact of fundamental design attributes, such as material and color, on human-robot trust has been limited. This study addresses how a human’s perception of fundamental, basic design features (i.e., the robot’s physical appearance) may influence their attribution of anthropomorphic characteristics to the robot. Two experiments investigated the correlations between the color, texture, and material of a robot body and the perception of the robot’s internal characteristics (i.e. intelligence, friendliness, robustness, reliability, personality, and integrity), as well as its appropriate uses and tasks. Experiment 1 found correlations between participants’ basic attributions and fundamental design elements of the robot images. Experiment 2 evaluated combinations of significant correlational relationships from study 1 to determine which of competing characteristics would determine the participants’ attributions of the robots’ internal characteristics. These correlations have implications for robot design and will lead to the creation of design heuristics and guidelines that can address any identified human biases occurring based on robot appearance alone.
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