The baby harp seal is propped on the table in front of me. The pup's eyes are closed. Its dormant, rotund, furry body looks soft and inviting. On hearing its name – “Paro” – the seal lifts and tilts its head. It opens wide, deep-lagoon eyes, and blinks.
Unable to resist, I reach out and gently scratch Paro's neck. I stroke its back and whiskers. The seal pup leans into my hand, and its body rumbles like a purring kitten.
“Oh,” I hear myself say, as I exhale and allow the creature to nuzzle its warm, soft body against mine.
Pleased to meet you
Like people, first impressions matter for robots. Human-robot interaction researcher Nathan Dennler says when people meet a new robot, they instinctively relate it to a familiar experience – a character or object it reminds them of. Those metaphors act as an anchor point for how they expect a robot to behave, and an indicator of its capabilities.
Dennler works in the Interactive and Collaborative Autonomous Robotics (ICAROS) lab at the University of Southern California, USA. He and colleagues recently assembled a collection of 165 interactive robots, to better understand the ways people respond to a robot's physical form.
They asked nearly 2,000 participants across three surveys to describe and rank a range of humanoid, animal-like and mechanical robots. Participants were asked to choose metaphors to describe each one and their expectations for its social interactions, including warmth, competence, gender, social role, likeability and function.
“We wanted to figure out how people conceptualise those robots,” he says.
Science fiction has perpetuated a fascination with humanoid or droid-like forms, but Dennler's research suggests zoomorphic designs offer certain advantages. People perceive animal
