Introducing a Rasch-Type Anthropomorphism Scale

In human-robot interaction research, much attention is given to the extent to which people perceive humanlike attributes in robots. Generally, the concept anthropomorphism is used to describe this process. Anthropomorphism is defined in different ways, with much focus on either typical human attributes or uniquely human attributes. This difference has caused different measurement tools to be developed. We argue that anthropomorphism can best be described as a continuum ranging from low to high human likeness, and should be measured accordingly. We found that anthropomorphic characteristics can be invariantly ordered according to the ease with which these can be ascribed to robots.