Consumer Attention to a Coffee Brewing Robot: An Eye-Tracking Study

During the COVID-19, robots were increasingly utilized in the food service industry. This study compared perceptions of robot and human baristas by tracking participants' eye-gaze behavior. Seventy participants viewed videos and images of both baristas, and their eye movements were tracked. Metrics such as entry time, dwell time, total fixation, hit ratio, revisits, revisitors, average fixation, first fixation, and fixation count in defined areas of interest (AOIs) were measured. Participants focused mostly on robot's body during coffee preparation and human barista's face. Attention stayed on the coffee with human baristas, while robot stimuli drew focus to the robot's hand and kettle. Participants fixated more on the robot itself, potentially due to its novelty in coffee preparation. This study can provide directions for the development of robots, including their appearance, so that they could be accepted familiarly by consumers and introduced seamlessly in the food industries.