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11:00 - 12:30
Parallel sessions 2
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11:00 - 12:30
Room: HSZ - N2
Chair/s:
Nadia Said
The introduction of new technologies has always shaped societies. Artificial intelligence (AI) applications, especially AI chatbots, are already part of everyday human life. Robots – for example in healthcare but also in other service areas – are also becoming more and more common. Generally, perceptions of these new technologies are mixed. Whereas some of them are widely accepted (e.g., use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT or DeepL), others are highly controversial (e.g., use of AI in classrooms or robots as companions in elderly homes). This raises the question of which factors influence human perceptions of and ultimately human interaction with AI and robots? The aim of this symposium is to present novel insights into human-AI and human-robot interaction by taking three different perspectives: (i) how far do social perceptions also extend to robots and how does this influence the interaction with robots?, (ii) what factors shape humans’ interaction with generative AI tools and how does such an interaction impact them?, (iii) do people differ in their perception of AI and robots? To provide answers to these questions, the first talk investigates the perception of robots as social actors. More specifically, the talk focuses on how similar robots are perceived to be, for example, to human partners. The second talk then tackles the question whether established social heuristics (such as the bystander effect) govern human behavior toward robots. Moving from embodied artificial actors to generative AI tools, the third talk focuses on the influence of external factors (explainability, content, culture) on the perception of an AI chatbot. The fourth talk investigates factors influencing the choice to use generative AI as a cognitive offloading tool and its consequences for human memory and performance. In the final talk, the question of whether Artificial Intelligence and robots are perceived differently is discussed. Jointly, these talks provide a broad overview of human-AI and human-robot interaction by examining the topic from different perspectives.
Submission 455
Perception of Human-Robot Relationships: Professional, Communicative, Impersonal and Emotionless
SymposiumTalk-01
Presented by: Monika Menz
Monika Menz 1, Markus Huff 1, 2
1 Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany
2 Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, Germany
Humans tend to ascribe social qualities not only to other people but also to non-human entities such as pets, toys, and robots. The present study examined how individuals distinguish between five types of relationship partners—a familiar person, a professional person, a pet, a cuddly toy, and a social robot—across three everyday contexts: caregiving, conversation, and leisure.

Applying the Repertory Grid Method, 103 participants generated 811 construct pairs, which were grouped into seven psychological dimensions: Verbal Communication, Assistance and Competences, Liveness and Humanity, Emotional and Empathic Ability, Autonomy and Voluntariness, Trust and Closeness, and Physical Activity and Responsiveness. Cluster analyses showed that in Verbal Communication and Assistance and Competences, robots were perceived comparably to human partners. In contrast, for Liveness and Humanity as well as Emotional and Empathic Ability, humans clustered together with pets and were clearly separated from robots and cuddly toys, indicating that robots are perceived as less animate and emotionally expressive. For Autonomy and Voluntariness and Trust and Closeness, robots aligned with professional humans, while familiar persons, pets, and cuddly toys formed a separate cluster. These results point to a dual perception of social robots: efficient collaborators on the one hand, but emotionally limited and socially constrained on the other. Identifying the underlying psychological dimensions of these perceptions advances the understanding of how people construct sociality, animacy, and emotional closeness in interactions with non-human agents.