Good to see you R2-D2: Inducing spontaneous perspective-taking towards non-human agents through human-like gaze and reach

Abstract

Observing the world from another's perspective is a fundamental social cognitive ability essential for human cooperation. With the increasing prevalence of intelligent systems in our society, highly intelligent social robots such as R2-D2 in Star Wars is becoming a reality, thus it is compelling to explore how this capability can extend from humans to non-human agents. Although previous research indicates that a human-like appearance might facilitate this extension, our study contends that human-like actions are more critical. We conducted four experiments involving agents that did not resemble humans but could perform two human-like actions: reach and gaze, which exhibited the perceptual and behavioral abilities that were essential for social interaction. The experiments found that agents prompted spontaneous perspective-taking among participants when they displayed both actions. Importantly, perspective-taking was maintained only when gaze preceded reach, underscoring the causal relationship that behavior should be interpreted as the consequence of perception. These results highlight the importance of human-like actions rather than mere appearance in fostering spontaneous perspective-taking towards non-human agents, providing insights for improving human-agent interaction.