Visual Perception of Robot Appearance Attributes in the Peripheral Field of View Depends on Human Observer Eye-Movement Behaviors

This paper presents results from a study on the perception of robot attributes by human observers in their peripheral field of view depending on types of eye-movements of the latter. A between-subjects design is used, where a picture of a robot head is presented on a screen in the peripheral field of view of the participants with two conditions of eye-movements: static and pursuit. The two conditions are realized by a dot to be tracked by the participants, which is placed either in the center of the screen or moving linearly between left and right screen margins. As a subjective measure for appearance attributes, anthropomorphism is used using the multi-component Human-Robot Interaction Evaluation Scale (HRIES). Significant differences are revealed in the sociability and agency sub-scales of HRIES with respect to eye-movement behaviors. The results show, that humans perceive robot appearance attributes differently depending on whether or not pursuit eye-movements are conducted supporting the main hypothesis. Further, for pursuit movements, the scale center is rated for these sub-scales, which may indicate, that the particular robot characteristic is perceived less distinctively. No significant interactions are found for animacy and disturbance, which may be due to less applicability of these sub-scales to static images. The findings may have an impact on close interaction between humans and robots and potential anthropomorphism-related influences on task accomplishment to be considered in interaction design.