Does Gaze Reveal the Human Likeness of an Android?

Abstract

The development of androids that closely resemble human beings enables as to investigate many phenomena related to human interaction that could not otherwise be investigated with mechanical-looking robots. This is because more humanlike devices are in a better position to elicit the kinds of responses that people direct toward each other. In particular, we cannot ignore the role of appearance in giving us a subjective impression of human presence or intelligence. However, this impression is influenced by behavior and the complex relationship between appearance and behavior. We propose a hypothesis about how appearance and behavior are related and map out a plan for android research to investigate the hypothesis. We then examine a study that evaluates the behavior of androids according to the patterns of gaze fixations they elicit. Studies such as these, which integrate the development of androids with the investigation of human behavior, constitute a new research area that fuses engineering and science