Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Investigation of Relationships Between Embodiment Perceptions and Perceived Social Presence in Human–Robot Interactions

  • Published:
International Journal of Social Robotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The corporeality of social robots can be broken down into anthropomorphic (humanoid), zoomorphic (animal-like), mechanoid (machine-like), and functional (use-based). The effects of these corporeal forms and their functions have been investigated within prior research; however, the benefits of each form and how they may relate to social presence still need investigation. 95 participants were randomly assigned to interact with either Lynx (humanoid), Vector (mechanoid), or Alexa Echo (functional) and then answered questionnaires related to the robot’s embodiment and perceived social presence. There is supporting evidence that social presence is explained by a few key factors of embodiment, but not all of them. (shared) perceptions and interpretations were found to be a requirement for social presence in robots. Once met, the robot’s motion seems to be the most important factor for improving and predicting emotional and behavioral interdependence. Based on these findings, robot development for social purposes would benefit by implementing different movements that can help build rapport.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Alotaibi M, Yamin M (2019) Role of robots in healthcare management. In: 2019 6th International conference on computing for sustainable global development (INDIACom). IEEE, pp 1311–1314

  2. Kyrarini M, Lygerakis F, Rajavenkatanarayanan A, Sevastopoulos C, Nambiappan HR, Chaitanya KK, Babu AR, Mathew J, Makedon F (2021) A survey of robots in healthcare. Technologies 9(1):8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Caruana N, Moffat R, Miguel-Blanco A, Cross ES (2023) Perceptions of intelligence & sentience shape children’s interactions with robot reading companions. Sci Rep 13(1):7341

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Belpaeme T, Kennedy J, Ramachandran A, Scassellati B, Tanaka F (2018) Social robots for education: a review. Sci Robot 3(21):eaat5954

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Vasconez JP, Kantor GA, Cheein FAA (2019) Human–robot interaction in agriculture: a survey and current challenges. Biosyst Eng 179:35–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Melenbrink N, Werfel J, Menges A (2020) On-site autonomous construction robots: towards unsupervised building. Autom Constr 119:103312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Smids J, Nyholm S, Berkers H (2020) Robots in the workplace: A threat to-or opportunity for-meaningful work? Philos Technol 33(3):503–522

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Sarrica M, Brondi S, Fortunati L (2020) How many facets does a “social robot" have? A review of scientific and popular definitions online. Inf Technol People 33(1):1–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Onyeulo EB, Gandhi V (2020) What makes a social robot good at interacting with humans? Information 11(1):43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Breazeal C (2003) Emotion and sociable humanoid robots. Int J Hum-Comput Stud 59(1–2):119–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Mead R, Matarić MJ (2016) Perceptual models of human-robot proxemics. Experimental robotics. Springer, pp 261–276

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Mead R, Atrash A, Matarić MJ (2013) Automated proxemic feature extraction and behavior recognition: applications in human–robot interaction. Int J Soc Robot 5(3):367–378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Takayama L, Pantofaru C (2009) Influences on proxemic behaviors in human-robot interaction. In: 2009 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems. IEEE, pp. 5495–5502

  14. Andrist S, Pejsa T, Mutlu B, Gleicher M (2012) Designing effective gaze mechanisms for virtual agents. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp 705–714

  15. Mutlu B, Kanda T, Forlizzi J, Hodgins J, Ishiguro H (2012) Conversational gaze mechanisms for humanlike robots. ACM Trans Interact Intell Syst (TiiS) 1(2):1–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Breazeal C, Kidd CD, Thomaz AL, Hoffman G, Berlin M (2005) “Effects of nonverbal communication on efficiency and robustness in human–robot teamwork. In: 2005 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems. IEEE, pp 708–713

  17. Sidner CL, Lee C, Kidd CD, Lesh N, Rich C (2005) Explorations in engagement for humans and robots. Artif Intell 166(1–2):140–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Reilly WS (1996) Believable social and emotional agents. Tech rep, Carnegie-Mellon Univ Pittsburgh pa Dept of Computer Science

  19. Naneva S, Sarda Gou M, Webb TL, Prescott TJ (2020) A systematic review of attitudes, anxiety, acceptance, and trust towards social robots. Int J Soc Robot 12(6):1179–1201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Kidd CD, Breazeal C (2004) Effect of a robot on user perceptions. In: 2004 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS) (IEEE Cat. No. 04CH37566), vol 4. IEEE, pp 3559–3564

  21. Dereshev D, Kirk D, Matsumura K, Maeda T (2019) Long-term value of social robots through the eyes of expert users. In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems, pp 1–12

  22. Fong T, Nourbakhsh I, Dautenhahn K (2003) A survey of socially interactive robots. Robot Auton Syst 42(3–4):143–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Breazeal C (2003) Toward sociable robots. Robot Auton Syst 42(3–4):167–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Leite I, Martinho C, Paiva A (2013) Social robots for long-term interaction: a survey. Int J Soc Robot 5:291–308

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Lambert A, Norouzi N, Bruder G, Welch G (2020) A systematic review of ten years of research on human interaction with social robots. Int J Hum-Comput Interact 36(19):1804–1817

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Deng E, Mutlu B, Mataric MJ et al (2019) Embodiment in socially interactive robots. Found Trends Robot® 7(4):251–356

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Kumazaki H, Muramatsu T, Yoshikawa Y, Matsumoto Y, Kuwata M, Takata K, Ishiguro H, Mimura M (2022) Differences in the optimal motion of android robots for the ease of communications among individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Front Psychiatry 13:883371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Li D, Rau PP, Li Y (2010) A cross-cultural study: effect of robot appearance and task. Int J Soc Robot 2:175–186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Yanco HA, Drury J (2004) Classifying human–robot interaction: an updated taxonomy. In: 2004 IEEE international conference on systems, man and cybernetics (IEEE Cat. No. 04CH37583), vol 3. IEEE, pp 2841–2846

  30. Wainer J, Feil-Seifer DJ, Shell DA, Mataric MJ (2006) The role of physical embodiment in human–robot interaction. In: ROMAN 2006-The 15th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication. IEEE, pp 117–122

  31. Turner P (2007) The intentional basis of presence. In: Proceedings of the 10th international workshop on presence, pp 127–134

  32. Baron-Cohen S (1999) Evolution of a theory of mind? In: Corballis MC, Lea SE (eds) The descent of mind: psychological perspectives on hominid evolution. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 261–277

    Google Scholar 

  33. Chin MG, Yordon RE, Clark BR, Ballion T, Dolezal MJ, Shumaker R, Finkelstein N (2005) Developing and anthropomorphic tendencies scale. In: Proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting, vol 49. SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, pp 1266–1268

  34. Paul ES, Moore A, McAinsh P, Symonds E, McCune S, Bradshaw JW (2014) Sociality motivation and anthropomorphic thinking about pets. Anthrozoös 27(4):499–512

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Sobel BM, Sims VK (2020) Personality assessment as a measure of nonhuman mental capacities: a study in anthropomorphism. In: Proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting, vol 64. SAGE Publications Sage CA, Los Angeles, CA, pp 1115–1119

  36. Waytz A, Cacioppo J, Epley N (2010) Who sees human? The stability and importance of individual differences in anthropomorphism. Perspect Psychol Sci 5(3):219–232

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Norman DA (2004) Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Civitas Books

  38. Biocca F, Harms C, Burgoon JK (2003) Toward a more robust theory and measure of social presence: review and suggested criteria. Presence: Teleoperat Virtual Environ 12(5):456–480

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Fasola J, Matarić MJ (2013) A socially assistive robot exercise coach for the elderly. J Hum-Robot Interact 2(2):3–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Lee KM, Jung Y, Kim J, Kim SR (2006) Are physically embodied social agents better than disembodied social agents?: the effects of physical embodiment, tactile interaction, and people’s loneliness in human–robot interaction. Int J Hum-Comput Stud 64(10):962–973

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Jung Y, Lee KM (2004) Effects of physical embodiment on social presence of social robots. Proc PRESENCE 2004:80–87

    Google Scholar 

  42. Scheier C, Pfeifer R (1999) The embodied cognitive science approach. In: Dynamics, synergetics, autonomous agents: nonlinear systems approaches to cognitive psychology and cognitive science. World Scientific, pp 159–179

  43. Bainbridge WA, Hart JW, Kim ES, Scassellati B (2011) The benefits of interactions with physically present robots over video-displayed agents. Int J Soc Robot 3(1):41–52

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Gava L, Grassi L, Lagomarsino M, Recchiuto C, Sgorbissa A (2020) Physical embodiment of conversational social robots. In: 2020 29th IEEE international conference on robot and human interactive communication (RO-MAN). IEEE, pp 456–463

  45. Hoffmann L, Bock N, vd Pütten AMR (2018) The peculiarities of robot embodiment (emcorp-scale): development, validation and initial test of the embodiment and corporeality of artificial agents scale. In: 2018 13th ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction (HRI). IEEE, pp 370–378

  46. Bazzano F, Lamberti F (2018) Human-robot interfaces for interactive receptionist systems and wayfinding applications. Robotics 7(3):56

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Anderson T (2003) Getting the mix right again: an updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. Int Rev Res Open Distrib Learn 4(2)

  48. Wilson M (2002) Six views of embodied cognition. Psychon Bull Rev 9(4):625–636

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Chemero A (2013) Radical embodied cognitive science. Rev General Psychol 17(2):145–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Barsalou LW, Niedenthal PM, Barbey AK, Ruppert JA (2003) Social embodiment. In: Ross BH (ed) The psychology of learning and motivation: advances in research and theory. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, pp 43–92

    Google Scholar 

  51. Wiltshire TJ, Lobato EJ, McConnell DS, Fiore SM (2015) Prospects for direct social perception: a multi-theoretical integration to further the science of social cognition. Front Hum Neurosci 8:1007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Gibson JJ (2014) The ecological approach to visual perception: classic edition. hology pr, Psycess

    Book  Google Scholar 

  53. Wang B, Rau P-LP (2019) Influence of embodiment and substrate of social robots on users’ decision-making and attitude. Int J Soc Robot 11(3):411–421

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Ventre-Dominey J, Gibert G, Bosse-Platiere M, Farne A, Dominey PF, Pavani F (2019) Embodiment into a robot increases its acceptability. Sci Rep 9(1):1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Baggs E, Chemero A (2021) Radical embodiment in two directions. Synthese 198(9):2175–2190

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Maturana HR, Varela FJ (1987) The tree of knowledge: the biological roots of human understanding. New Science Library/Shambhala Publications

    Google Scholar 

  57. Clark A (1998) Being there: putting brain, body, and world together again. MIT press

    Google Scholar 

  58. Norman DA (1999) Affordance, conventions, and design. Interactions 6(3):38–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. De Graaf MM, Allouch SB (2013) Exploring influencing variables for the acceptance of social robots. Robot Auton Syst 61(12):1476–1486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. de Graaf MM, Allouch SB, van Dijk JA (2016) Long-term acceptance of social robots in domestic environments: insights from a user’s perspective. In: 2016 AAAI spring symposium series

  61. de Graaf MM, Ben Allouch S, Van Dijk JA (2019) Why would i use this in my home? A model of domestic social robot acceptance. Hum-Comput Interact 34(2):115–173

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Klamer T, Allouch SB (2010) Acceptance and use of a social robot by elderly users in a domestic environment. In: 2010 4th international conference on pervasive computing technologies for healthcare. IEEE, pp 1–8

  63. Herse S, Vitale J, Tonkin M, Ebrahimian D, Ojha S, Johnston B, Judge W, Williams M-A (2018) Do you trust me, blindly? Factors influencing trust towards a robot recommender system. In: 2018 27th IEEE international symposium on robot and human interactive communication (RO-MAN). IEEE, pp 7–14

  64. Gaudiello I, Zibetti E, Lefort S, Chetouani M, Ivaldi S (2016) Trust as indicator of robot functional and social acceptance. An experimental study on user conformation to ICUB answers. Comput Hum Behav 61:633–655

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Cross ES, Ramsey R (2021) Mind meets machine: towards a cognitive science of human–machine interactions. Trends Cognit Sci 25(3):200–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Hayashi K, Sakamoto D, Kanda T, Shiomi M, Koizumi S, Ishiguro H, Ogasawara T, Hagita N (2007) Humanoid robots as a passive-social medium: a field experiment at a train station. In: Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE international conference on Human–robot interaction, pp 137–144

  67. Wu Y-H, Fassert C, Rigaud A-S (2012) Designing robots for the elderly: appearance issue and beyond. Arch Gerontol Geriatr 54(1):121–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Raigoso D, Céspedes N, Cifuentes CA, Del-Ama AJ, Múnera M (2021) A survey on socially assistive robotics: clinicians’ and patients’ perception of a social robot within gait rehabilitation therapies. Brain Sci 11(6):738

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Liu Y, Li F, Tang LH, Lan Z, Cui J, Sourina O, Chen C-H (2019) Detection of humanoid robot design preferences using EEG and eye tracker. In: 2019 international conference on cyberworlds (CW). IEEE, pp 219–224

  70. Oh YH, Ju DY (2020) Age-related differences in fixation pattern on a companion robot. Sensors 20(13):3807

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Mori M, MacDorman KF, Kageki N (2012) The uncanny valley [from the field]. IEEE Robot Autom Mag 19(2):98–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Saygin AP, Chaminade T, Ishiguro H, Driver J, Frith C (2012) The thing that should not be: predictive coding and the uncanny valley in perceiving human and humanoid robot actions. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 7(4):413–422

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Yam KC, Bigman Y, Gray K (2021) Reducing the uncanny valley by dehumanizing humanoid robots. Comput Hum Behav 125:106945

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Harms C, Biocca F (2004) Internal consistency and reliability of the networked minds measure of social presence, in Seventh annual international workshop: Presence, vol 2004. Universidad Politecnica de Valencia Valencia, Spain

  75. Rosenthal-von der Pütten A, Straßmann C, Krämer N (2020) Language learning with artificial entities: effects of an artificial tutor’s embodiment and behavior on users’ alignment and evaluation. In: International conference on social robotics. Springer, pp 96–107

  76. Shinozawa K, Reeves B, Wise K, Lim S, Maldonado H, Naya F (2003) Robots as new media: a cross-cultural examination of social and cognitive responses to robotic and on-screen agents. In: Proceedings of annual conference of internation communication association, pp 998–1002

  77. Ostrowski AK, Zygouras V, Park HW, Breazeal C (2021) Small group interactions with voice-user interfaces: exploring social embodiment, rapport, and engagement. In: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction, pp 322–331

  78. Zwakman DS, Pal D, Arpnikanondt C (2021) Usability evaluation of artificial intelligence-based voice assistants: the case of Amazon Alexa. SN Comput Sci 2:1–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Kurz M, Brüggemeier B, Breiter M (2021) Success is not final; failure is not fatal–task success and user experience in interactions with Alexa, Google assistant and Siri. In: Human–Computer Interaction. Design and User Experience Case Studies: Thematic Area, HCI 2021, Held as Part of the 23rd HCI International Conference, HCII 2021, Virtual Event, July 24–29, 2021, Proceedings, Part III 23. Springer, pp 351–369

  80. Berdasco A, López G, Diaz I, Quesada L, Guerrero LA (2019) User experience comparison of intelligent personal assistants: Alexa, Google assistant, Siri and Cortana. UCAml 2019:51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  81. Bartneck C, Kulić D, Croft E, Zoghbi S (2009) Measurement instruments for the anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety of robots. Int J Soc Robot 1(1):71–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Fink J (2012) Anthropomorphism and human likeness in the design of robots and human-robot interaction. In: International conference on social robotics. Springer, pp 199–208

  83. Broadbent E (2017) Interactions with robots: the truths we reveal about ourselves. Annu Rev Psychol 68(1):627–652

    Article  Google Scholar 

  84. Rothstein N, Kounios J, Ayaz H, Visser EJd (2020) “Assessment of human-likeness and anthropomorphism of robots: a literature review. In: International conference on applied human factors and ergonomics. Springer, pp 190–196

  85. Kwon M, Jung MF, Knepper RA (2016) Human expectations of social robots. In: 2016 11th ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction (HRI). IEEE, pp 463–464

  86. Rosenthal-von der Pütten AM, Krämer NC (2015) Individuals’ evaluations of and attitudes towards potentially uncanny robots. Int J Soc Robot 7(5):799–824

    Article  Google Scholar 

  87. Georgiou I, Becchio C, Glover S, Castiello U (2007) Different action patterns for cooperative and competitive behaviour. Cognition 102(3):415–433

    Article  Google Scholar 

  88. Runeson S, Frykholm G (1983) Kinematic specification of dynamics as an informational basis for person-and-action perception: expectation, gender recognition, and deceptive intention. J Exp Psychol General 112(4):585

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Sasser J, Montalvo F, Bendell R, Hancock P, McConnell DS (2020) Exploring the effect of virtual robot acceleration on perceived competitiveness/cooperativeness, animacy, and intelligence. In: Proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting, vol 64. SAGE Publications Sage CA, Los Angeles, CA, pp 1595–1599

  90. Robotics U (2017) Lynx: the first video-enabled humanoid robot with Amazon Alexa. YouTube, January

  91. Labs DD (2022) Vector by ddl now with Amazon Alexa built-in. YouTube, August

  92. Ostrowski AK, Breazeal C, Park HW (2022) Mixed-method long-term robot usage: older adults’ lived experience of social robots. In: 2022 17th ACM/IEEE international conference on human–robot interaction (HRI). IEEE, pp 33–42

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Daniel S. McConnell and Janan A. Smither have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Jordan A. Sasser, Daniel S. McConnell & Janan A. Smither

Authors
  1. Jordan A. Sasser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel S. McConnell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Janan A. Smither
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jordan A. Sasser.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sasser, J.A., McConnell, D.S. & Smither, J.A. Investigation of Relationships Between Embodiment Perceptions and Perceived Social Presence in Human–Robot Interactions. Int J of Soc Robotics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-024-01138-w

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-024-01138-w

Keywords

Search

Navigation