What makes a good social robot? The answer might surprise you
Making a good first impression is important to many people – and it turns out it’s also something you need to think about when it comes to social robots, or robots designed for interpersonal interactions with humans.
New research out of the University of Waterloo’s Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab has found that people prefer robots that seem similar to themselves.
The study, done by professors Moojan Ghafurian and Kersten Dautenhahn, asked 95 people to rate pictures of 11 different robots on some key characteristics like how good, active and powerful they appeared.
Participants then had to rate themselves on the same traits and say how interested they would be in working with the various robots in a health care setting.
The results were interesting.
“The closer they rated the robot to themselves, the more interested they were to use it in a health care scenario,” says Ghafurian.
Nao, a robot from the University of Waterloo Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab, whose image was used as part of the study. (Krista Simpson/CTV Kitchener)
The information could help fine-tune robots in the future.
“We want them to be successful, so we want them to be personalizable, which means to adjust their personality and interactions based on each individual,” Ghafurian explains.
Social robots could one day be used in numerous other settings too, including education. Masters student Andrea Chakma, who is also studying social robots, says the potential ranges from using robots to help children improve their spelling, to reminding older people to take their medications throughout the day.
Nao, a robot from the University of Waterloo Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Lab, whose image was used as part of the study. (Krista Simpson/CTV Kitchener)
Ghafurian is particularly interested in how robots could help older adults, including people with dementia.
Chakma says good first impressions are especially important as people become familiar with the idea of social robots in real life, and not just how they’re portrayed in fiction.
“Oftentimes we see robots portrayed as sometimes scary, sometimes things that we don't understand, things that we don't recognize,” says Chakma. “So if a robot, at first glance, can make a really good impression for you and you can connect with that robot, then it makes you feel a lot more at ease and a lot more comfortable when you're actually interacting with it.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.