Abstract
What encourages people to refer to a robot as if it was a living being? Is it because of the robot's humanoid or animal-like shape, its movements or rather the kind of interaction it enables? We aim to investigate robots' characteristics that lead people to anthropomorphize it by comparing different kinds of robotic devices and contrasting it to an interactive technology. We addressed this question by comparing anthropomorphic language in online forums about the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, the AIBO robotic dog, and the iPad tablet computer. A content analysis of 750 postings was carried out. We expected to find the highest amount of anthropomorphism in the AIBO forum but were not sure about how far people referred to Roomba or the iPad as a lifelike artifact. Findings suggest that people anthropomorphize their robotic dog significantly more than their Roomba or iPad, across different topics of forum posts. Further, the topic of the post had a significant impact on anthropomorphic language.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany, May 21 - 23, 2012 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
| Pages | 54-59 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781467304818 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
| Event | IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts - Duration: 21 May 2012 → … |
Conference
| Conference | IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts |
|---|---|
| Period | 21/05/12 → … |
Keywords
- Internet
- anthropomorphism
- iPad (computer)
- laptop computers
- mobile robots
- tablet computers