“Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do!” switching off a robot

Robots can exhibit life like behavior, but are according to traditional definitions not alive. Current robot users are confronted with an ambiguous entity and it is important to understand the users perception of these robots. This study analyses if a robot's intelligence and its agreeableness influence its perceived animacy. The robot's animacy was measured, amongst other measurements, by the users' hesitation to switch it off. The results show that participants hesitated three times as long to switch off an agreeable and intelligent robot as compared to a non agreeable and unintelligent robot. The robots' intelligence had a significant influence on its perceived animacy. Our results suggest that interactive robots should be intelligent and exhibit an agreeable attitude to maximize its perceived animacy.