‘People respond to robots in a primitive, social way’.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A group of California-based researchers have found that a gentle touch of a humanoid robot can create arousal in humans, reported The Guardian.
The researchers arrived at their conclusion with the help of 10 human volunteers and an Aldebaran Robotics Nao robot. It will be presented at the 66th annual conference of the International Communication Association in Japan, in June.
The robot asked the volunteers to touch different body parts of a robot using their dominant hand. The response of the volunteers’ body was measured using a sensor on the other hand. The sensor measured skin conductance, which is considered as an indicator of emotional arousal.
The researchers have established that when the volunteers touched the private parts of the robot like buttocks or genitals, it created an emotional arousal in their body. At the same time, when they touched other body parts like hand or ear, the response was normal.
“Our work shows that robots are a new form of media that is particularly powerful. It shows that people respond to robots in a primitive, social way,†Jamy Li, a mechanical engineer at Stanford University in California, told The Guardian.
“Social conventions regarding touching someone else’s private parts apply to a robot’s body parts as well. The research has implications for both robot design and the theory of artificial systems,†she added.
Li was the leader of the research group.
The researchers used a two-foot robot that was programmed to speak to the participants. Four female and six male volunteers were asked to touch 13 parts of the robot’s body.
The trial was repeated 26 times to arrive at the conclusion. A notable point is that there was no such response when they were asked only to point fingers at the robot.
“Social robots can elicit tactile responses in human physiology, a result that signals the power of robots, and should caution mechanical and interaction designers about positive and negative effects of human-robot interactions,†the researchers said.