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International Conference on Social Robotics

ICSR 2012: Social Robotics pp 199–208Cite as

Anthropomorphism and Human Likeness in the Design of Robots and Human-Robot Interaction

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Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNAI,volume 7621)

Abstract

In this literature review we explain anthropomorphism and its role in the design of socially interactive robots and human-robot interaction. We illustrate the social phenomenon of anthropomorphism which describes people’s tendency to attribute lifelike qualities to objects and other non lifelike artifacts. We present theoretical backgrounds from social sciences, and integrate related work from robotics research, including results from experiments with social robots. We present different approaches for anthropomorphic and humanlike form in a robot’s design related to its physical shape, its behavior, and its interaction with humans. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of anthropomorphism in robotics, collects and reports relevant references, and gives an outlook on anthropomorphic human-robot interaction.

Keywords

  • anthropomorphism
  • design
  • human-robot interaction
  • literature review
  • social robots
  • social factors in robotics

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_20
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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CRAFT, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Julia Fink

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  1. Julia Fink
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Interactive Digial Media Institute, Social Robotics Laboratory, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 3, 117576, Singapore, Singapore

    Shuzhi Sam Ge & John-John Cabibihan & 

  2. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Gates Building, 94305-9010, Stanford, CA, USA

    Oussama Khatib

  3. Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, 15213, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Reid Simmons

  4. Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Human-robot Collaboration Studio, 2007, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Mary-Anne Williams

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Fink, J. (2012). Anthropomorphism and Human Likeness in the Design of Robots and Human-Robot Interaction. In: Ge, S.S., Khatib, O., Cabibihan, JJ., Simmons, R., Williams, MA. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7621. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_20

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