What is Human-like?: Decomposing Robots' Human-like Appearance Using the Anthropomorphic roBOT (ABOT) Database
Abstract
Anthropomorphic robots, or robots with human-like appearance features such as eyes, hands, or faces, have drawn considerable attention in recent years. To date, what makes a robot appear human-like has been driven by designers» and researchers» intuitions, because a systematic understanding of the range, variety, and relationships among constituent features of anthropomorphic robots is lacking. To fill this gap, we introduce the ABOT (Anthropomorphic roBOT) Database---a collection of 200 images of real-world robots with one or more human-like appearance features (http://www.abotdatabase.info). Harnessing this database, Study 1 uncovered four distinct appearance dimensions (i.e., bundles of features) that characterize a wide spectrum of anthropomorphic robots and Study 2 identified the dimensions and specific features that were most predictive of robots» perceived human-likeness. With data from both studies, we then created an online estimation tool to help researchers predict how human-like a new robot will be perceived given the presence of various appearance features. The present research sheds new light on what makes a robot look human, and makes publicly accessible a powerful new tool for future research on robots» human-likeness.
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Commonly used behavior change theories include motivational interviewing, the social cognitive theory, the transtheoretical model, and the theory of planned behavior.
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- Authors
- Phillips, E., Zhao, X., Ullman, D., & Malle, B. F.
- Affiliations
- Brown University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2018-02-26
- Pages
- 105-113
- OpenAlex
- W2794343903
- Cited by
- 233
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 26 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 32.68
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Office of Naval Research (#N00014-14-1-0144)
- Department of Defense (DOD) (National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robotics and Automated Systems
- Keywords
- humanoid robots, human-likeness, robot appearance, appearance features, perceived human-likeness, human-robot interaction, robot design
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