Don't Judge a Book by its Cover: A Study of the Social Acceptance of NAO vs. Pepper

Abstract

In an explorative study concerning the social acceptance of two specific humanoid robots, the experimenter asked participants (N = 36) to place a book in an adjacent room. Upon entering the room, participants were confronted by a NAO or a Pepper robot expressing persistent opposition against the idea of placing the book in the room. On average, 72% of participants facing NAO complied with the robot's requests and returned the book to the experimenter. The corresponding figure for the Pepper robot was 50%, which shows that the two robot morphologies had a different effect on participants' social behavior. Furthermore, results from a post-study questionnaire (GODSPEED) indicated that participants perceived NAO as more likable, intelligent, safe and lifelike than Pepper. Moreover, participants used significantly more positive words and fewer negative words to describe NAO than Pepper in an open-ended interview. There was no statistically significant difference between conditions in participants' negative attitudes toward robots in general, as assessed using the NARS questionnaire.