the inversion effect in hri: are robots perceived more like humans or objects?

The Inversion Effect in HRI

Jakub Złotowski & Christoph Bartneck

Anthropomorphism

Measurement tools

Inversion effect

P. Bernard, S. J. Gervais, J. Allen, S. Campomizzi, and O. Klein, “Integrating sexual objectification with object versus person recognition: The sexualized-body-inversion hypothesis,” Psychological Science, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 469–471, 2012.

Research questions Do robots elicit the inversion effect? Can the magnitude of the inversion effect be

used as a measurement tool of a target's anthropomorphism?

Measurements Correctness of participants' responses Reaction times Godspeed Anthropomorphism Scale

Materials (examples)

Materials (examples)

Materials (examples)

Procedure

Procedure

Procedure

Procedure

Procedure

Procedure

+

+

Experimental design

Upright Upside

Object Accuracy and Speed Accuracy and Speed

Robot Accuracy and Speed Accuracy and Speed

Human Accuracy and Speed Accuracy and Speed

NO

YES

?

Participants 47 participants (15 female) Mainly postgraduate and undergraduate

students Age range 18 – 58 years; M = 26.26 From 24 countries, mainly NZ and China Limited or no experience with robots

Inversion effect

Upright Upside down30

30.5

31

31.5

32

32.5

33

Object

Robot

Human

Image orientation

Re

cog

niti

on

acc

ura

cy

Inversion effect

Upright Upside down30

30.5

31

31.5

32

32.5

33

Object

Robot

Human

Image orientation

Re

cog

niti

on

acc

ura

cy

Inversion effect

Upright Upside down30

30.5

31

31.5

32

32.5

33

Object

Robot

Human

Image orientation

Re

cog

niti

on

acc

ura

cy

Inversion effect

Upright Upside down30

30.5

31

31.5

32

32.5

33

Object

Robot

Human

Image orientation

Re

cog

niti

on

acc

ura

cy

Validity of the method

Clusters

Rest Androids

Conclusions Images of people and robots are processed

configurally – robots processed more like humans than objects

Discrepancy between the self-report and cognition Linear relation between the inversion effect and

anthropomorphism New method outperformed by the Godspeed

Anthropomorphism Scale

Limitations and future work Images rather than real robots Embodiments might change in the future Mirroring images might NOT be optimal for

creating distractors Which robots are processed configurally? Replication of the study with industrial and

popular media robots, and toys with anthropomorphic appearance

Thank you!