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Expressive Elements of Lifelike Machines

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Abstract

The creation of lifelike machines involves animation principles as much as technical challenges. Researchers in various fields, including the arts, games, and social robotics, work to create a semblance of life, intelligence, and sensibility in machines. However, attempts to induce this semblance frequently result in unintended, unlifelike, or repulsive characterizations. The contribution of this study is a framework that analyzes, describes, and identifies how various devices, from anthropomorphic robots to household appliances, display lifelike qualities. Based on an extensive examination of lifelike machines in various fields, the authors propose that lifelikeness arises from articulating four expressive elements: body, behavior, setting, and name. This present study shows that components can be mutually supportive or contradictory and have the potential to modify the impression of each other, showing that lifelike qualities in machines rely not on realistic depictions of life but on balancing the unfamiliar and the familiar aspects in the machines.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our very great appreciation to Bill Vorn, Pierre Latteur, Serena van Nimwegen, June Park, and Disrael Cunha for their valuable and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this research work. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and references and to Bill Vorn & Louis-Philippe Demers, Simon Penny, and The RoboCup Federation for the permission to reproduce their images.

Funding

This research was funded by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil (Brasilia – DF 70040-020) through the program Sciences without Borders (2014–2018), proc. n. 13333/13 − 5. This project has also received support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 890912.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain la Neuve, Belgium

    Julia Zamboni

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Brasilia, Brasília, Brazil

    Dianne Magalhães Viana

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Luis Rodrigues

  4. Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

    Mia Consalvo

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  1. Julia Zamboni
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  2. Dianne Magalhães Viana
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  4. Mia Consalvo
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Correspondence to Julia Zamboni.

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Zamboni, J., Viana, D.M., Rodrigues, L. et al. Expressive Elements of Lifelike Machines. Int J of Soc Robotics 15, 879–891 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-023-00994-2

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