Investigating the Emotional Impact of Social Robots : A Comparative Study on the Influence of Appearance and Application Area on Human Emotions

Abstract: The rapid development of social robots, designed to interact with humans, has led to increased research on user acceptance and emotions in human-robot interaction. Social acceptance is an important area to investigate if the development of social robots is to be useful. Investigating how people feel about social robots is one tool to assess acceptance toward them, and research has shown that positive emotions could invoke higher acceptance. Possible factors that have been shown to affect peoples’ attitudes regarding social robots is (1) the human-likeness and appearance of the robot and (2) the application area of the robot. Therefore, this thesis research questions address the effect of human-likeness and application areas of social robots on people's emotions. The findings indicate that in the context of companionship, people have varying emotional responses based on the appearance of the social robot. Highly human-like robots evoke more positive emotions, while low human-likeness robots elicit more negative emotions. This suggests that individuals prefer human-like social robots in intimate interactions like companionship. The results also reveal an effect of application areas, where people respond more positively to highly human-like robots used for tasks like lecturing students or companionship for older adults. Regarding less human-like social robots, people tend to respond with greater positive emotions when used within commerce. This suggests that a simpler-looking robot with low human-likeness is more suitable for commercial applications. Negative emotions expressed in the healthcare condition may reflect mistrust in robots' abilities and the sensitivity of the healthcare area. Developers and designers should consider the emotional responses that might be evoked by the task or appearance of the social robot, to ensure successful integration into society.