Effect of human attributes and type of robots on psychological evaluation of humanoids

In this study, we investigate the effect of the attributes of humans, such as sex and age, on their psychological evaluation of humanoids. We used 11 humanoids in order to investigate the basic tendency of humans to evaluate humanoids. In addition, we included wheeled-walking robots, biped-walking robots, and androids in order to consider the influence of the type of humanoid. We collected data from 2,624 Japanese individuals, ranging from teenagers to people in their 70s, in three major cities in order to obtain maximally representative data. For our psychological scale, we used a humanoid-oriented scale that was developed on the basis of parameters for the evaluation of humanoids according to the perspectives of ordinary people. These parameters are familiarity, utility, and humanness. The results show that middle-aged and older females tend to rate the familiarity and humanness of all humanoids higher, adolescents tend to rate the familiarity and utility of wheeled-walking humanoids higher and the utility of androids lower, and middle-aged people tend to rate the utility of all humanoids higher. We discuss the improved design of humanoids considering both human characteristics and types of humanoids.