In this paper we describe effects of human interactions with a pet-type robot, especially with AIBO. First, we describe a design concept for AIBO based on how to increase its "lifelike" appearance. By introducing statistical results of marketing, and experiments involving human-robot interactions using AIBO, we show that this pet-type robot activates human emotions effectively. Furthermore, the experiments demonstrate that AIBO helps in human-human communication. We discuss the phenomena of interaction with AIBO, and attempt to explain why this happened.
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Masahiro Fujita (2004) studied this question.