Towards the Influence of Human Observer Eye-Movements on Discriminating Between Perceived Sociability of Different Robots

Results from a study on Perceived Sociability of a robot dependent on different gaze behaviors of human observers are presented. A 2x2 between-subjects design is used with independent variables ’gaze-behavior’ (static/dynamic) and ’robot’ (appearance) of a displayed robot head. Participants are told to fixate a point on a screen, which is either static or moving linearly, while a picture of one of two robot heads is shown in the covert visual attention region of the human observer. The robots differ in the level of human-likeness (mechanistic vs. anthropomorphic). Significant results show, that Perceived Sociability depends on the interaction of gaze-behavior and robot appearance. The findings show, that eye-movements influence covert perception of robot attributes and contribute to a better understanding of gaze dependent perception of robot appearance with potential practical implications of situational perception of anthropomorphic attributes like sociability situationally impacting interaction with the robot.