Effects of Polite Behaviors Expressed by Robots: A Psychological Experiment in Japan

Effects of Polite Behaviors Expressed by Robots: A Psychological Experiment in Japan

Tatsuya Nomura (Ryukoku University, Japan) and Kazuma Saeki (Ryukoku University, Japan)
Copyright: © 2010 |Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/jse.2010070103

Abstract

A psychological experiment was conducted to straightforwardly investigate the effects of polite behaviors expressed by robots in Japan, using a small-sized humanoid robot that performed four types of behaviors with voice task instructions. Results of the experiment suggested that the subjects who experienced “deep bowing” motion of the robot felt it more extrovert than those who experienced “just standing” motion. Subjects who experienced “lying” motion of the robot felt the robot less polite than those who experienced the other motions. Female subjects more strongly feeling the robot extrovert replied for the task instruction from the robot faster, although no such trend was found in the male subjects. However, the male subjects who did not perform the task felt the robot less polite than the male subjects who performed the task and the female subjects who did not perform the task.
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Method

The psychological experiment in the study was conducted based on the following research question:

  • ●

    Whether differences on polite behaviors in robots affect human impression of and behaviors toward the robots.

The experiment adopted a 2 x 4 between-subjects design of gender and types of robot motion.

Subjects

The experiment was conducted from October to December, 2008. A total of forty two persons participated to the experiment. They were university students in the western area of Japan, and recruited with one thousand yen. Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the participants.

Table 1.
Demographic characteristics of subjects in the experiment
MaleFemale
Education
Social sciences1315
Natural sciences or engineering75
Unknown20
Total2220
Age Mean19.719.9
SD1.21.3
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