The Effect of 3D/VR on the Perception of Robot Humanlikeness *

Humanlikeness is a quality possessed by social robots tasked for human interaction. This quality has remained ambiguously defined in literature, despite the notion that social robots with humanlike qualities tend to be better received by users. Currently, the Anthropomorphic Robot (ABOT) Database serves as a validated resource for robot designers and researchers to reference a robot’s humanlikeness score. However, one of the limitations of this database is that the scores are based on 2D images of the robots, rather than based on the actual embodied robots. To combat this limitation, the current study aims to research if having the robots in a 3D Virtual Reality (VR) space makes a difference in the humanlikeness scores. This current study focuses on collecting the humanlikeness scores of robots in VR, and further aims to compare the scores with the scores that are currently listed in the ABOT Database. To accomplish this, 16 robot models were put in a VR environment where participants rated the humanlikeness of each robot. All the robots were previously rated in the current ABOT database so the scores from the VR environment and the ABOT database could be compared. Results from 11 participants show no significant difference between 2D humanlikeness scores and 3D/VR humanlikeness scores. The results of this paper will validate the progression of continuing to build a 3D visualized database of humanlike robots while providing further context for how perceptions of humanlikeness differ throughout 2 and 3-dimensional spaces.