Effects of visual appearance on the attribution of applications in social robotics

This paper investigates the influence of visual appearance of social robots on judgments about their potential applications. 183 participants rated the appropriateness of thirteen categories of applications for twelve social robots in an online study. The ratings were based on videos displaying the appearance of the robot combined with basic information about the robots' general functions. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the visual appearance of robots is a significant predictor for the estimation of applications in the eye of the beholder. Furthermore, the ratings showed an attractiveness bias: robots being judged as more attractive by the users also received more positive evaluations (i.e., ldquolikingrdquo).