The Influence of Human-like Appearance on Expected Robot Explanations

Abstract

A robot's appearance is a known factor influencing user's mental model and human-robot interaction, that has not been studied in the context of its influence in expected robot explanations. In this study, we investigate whether and to what extent the human-like appearance of robots elicits anthropomorphism, which is conceptualised as an attribution of mental capacities, and how the level of anthropomorphism is revealed in explanations that people expect to receive. We designed a between-subject study comprising conditions with visual stimuli of three domestic service robots with varying human-like appearance, and we prompted respondents to provide explanations they would expect to receive from the robot for the same robot actions. We found that most explanations were anthropomorphic across all conditions. However, there is a positive correlation between the anthropomorphic explanations and human-like appearance. We also report on more nuanced trends observed in non-anthropomorphic explanations and trends in robot descriptions.