Assessing Human Likeness by Eye Contact in an Android Testbed

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings enables us to investigate many phenomena related to human interactions that could not otherwise be investigated with mechanical-looking robots.This is because more humanlike devices are in a better position to elicit the kinds of responses people direct at each other.In particular, we cannot ignore the role of appearance in giving us a subjective impression of social presence or intelligence.However, this impression is influenced by behavior and the complex relationship between it and appearance.As Masahiro Mori observed, a humanlike appearance does not necessarily give a positive impression.We propose a hypothesis as to how appearance and behavior are related and map out a plan for android research to investigate this hypothesis.We then examine a study that evaluates the behavior of androids according to the patterns of gaze fixations they elicit in human subjects.Studies such as these, which integrate the development of androids with the investigation of human behavior, constitute a new research area fusing engineering and science.