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Non-human Looking Robot Arms Induce Illusion of Embodiment

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Abstract

We examine whether non-human looking humanoid robot arms can be perceived as part of one’s own body. In two subsequent experiments, participants experienced high levels of embodiment of a robotic arm that had a blue end effector with no fingers (Experiment 1) and of a robotic arm that ended with a gripper (Experiment 2) when it was stroked synchronously with the real arm. Levels of embodiment were significantly higher than the corresponding asynchronous condition and similar to those reported for a human-looking arm. Additionally, we found that visuo-movement synchronization also induced embodiment of the robot arm and that embodiment was even partially maintained when the robot hand was covered with a blue plastic cover. We conclude that humans are able to experience a strong sense of embodiment towards non-human looking robot arms. The results have important implications for the domains related to robotic embodiment.

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Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union with the Marie Curie IOF Fellowship project HumRobCooperation under Grant agreement No. PIOF-CT-622764. It is also partially supported from the FP7 IP VERE No. 257695 and the Kakenhi ‘houga’ Grant 15616710 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). We specially thank Prof. E. Yoshida for his support in the ethical procedures and the interns at our laboratory in Japan who collaborated for the pretest or to appear in the pictures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory (JRL), UMI3218/RL, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Central 1, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8560, Japan

    Laura Aymerich-Franch, Damien Petit, Gowrishankar Ganesh & Abderrahmane Kheddar

  2. CNRS-UM LIRMM, Interactive Digital Human Group, UMR5506, Montpellier, France

    Damien Petit, Gowrishankar Ganesh & Abderrahmane Kheddar

  3. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Central 1, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8560, Japan

    Laura Aymerich-Franch

Authors
  1. Laura Aymerich-Franch
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  2. Damien Petit
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  3. Gowrishankar Ganesh
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  4. Abderrahmane Kheddar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura Aymerich-Franch.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary material 1 (mp4 23858 KB)

Appendices

Appendix 1

Embodiment questionnaire for Study 1

From 1 (not at all) to 7 (very strongly), how strongly do you feel as if...

The arm you see was part of your body

The arm you see was in the location of your real arm

You could push an object with the arm you see

Embodiment questionnaire for Study 2

From 1 (not at all) to 7 (very strongly), it seems like...

You are looking directly at your own arm, rather than at a rubber/robot arm

The rubber/robot arm is part of your body

The rubber/robot arm is your arm

The rubber/robot arm belongs to you

The rubber/robot arm begins to resemble your real arm

The rubber/robot arm is in the location where your arm is

Your arm is in the location where the rubber/robot arm is

You could push an object with the arm you see

You could move the arm you see

Questions for the brief interview in Study 2

  1. 1.

    Describe a little bit the experience you just had.

  2. 2.

    From all the conditions you experienced, in which one the illusion that the arm you saw through the visor was strongest?

  3. 3.

    In general, was the sensation stronger in the synchronous or in the asynchronous conditions?

  4. 4.

    Was the sensation of seeing a human or a robot arm different, which one created a stronger illusion that the arm became your arm?

  5. 5.

    From all the (synch) robot arm conditions you experienced, in which one the illusion was stronger: the gripper or the arm with a blue cover? For the cover arm: the one in which we brushed your hand or the one in which you moved your hand and the robot hand moved?

  6. 6.

    Is there any sensation or anything else that you experienced which we did not ask you during the experiment that you would like to share with us? (e.g. anything that prevented you from having a stronger experience, etc.)

Appendix 2

Experimental conditions in Experiment 1 and 2 (Table 3).

Table 3 Experimental conditions by experiment
Full size table

Appendix 3

Overall results for embodiment by condition in Experiment 1 and 2 (Table 4).

Table 4 Embodiment scores by experimental condition for the two experiments
Full size table

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Aymerich-Franch, L., Petit, D., Ganesh, G. et al. Non-human Looking Robot Arms Induce Illusion of Embodiment. Int J of Soc Robotics 9, 479–490 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-017-0397-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-017-0397-8

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