In my primary school, I felt stupid because I was behind the others.
3 . According to a new study by Tampere University in Finland, making eye contact with a robot may have the same effect on people as eye contact with another person. The result predicts that interaction between humans and humanoid robots will be surprisingly smooth.
With the rapid progress in robotics, it is expected that people will increasingly interact with so-called social robots in the future. Despite the artificiality of robots, people seem to react to them socially. For instance, people may sense different qualities, such as knowledge ability, sociability and likability in robots based on how they look or behave.
Previous surveys have been able to throw light on people’s sensory ability of social robots and their characteristics, but the very central question has remained unanswered. Does interacting with a robot cause similar reactions to people as interacting with another human?
Researchers at Tampere University investigated the matter by studying the physiological (生理的) reactions that eye contact with a social robot produces. In the new study, the research participants sat face to face with another person or a humanoid robot. The person and the robot looked either directly at the participants and made eye contact or avoided their gaze. At the same time, the participants’ skin conductance (电导率), which reflected the activity of the autonomous nervous systems, the electrical activity of the cheek muscle reflecting positive affective reactions, and the heart rate reduction were measured.
The result showed that all the above-mentioned physiological reactions were stronger in the case of eye contact when compared to averted gaze (转移目光). This result is shared with both another person and a humanoid. Eye contact with the robot and another human focused the participants’ attention and brought about a positive emotional response.
“Our result shows that the non-linguistic (非语言的), interaction-regulating signals of social robots can affect humans in the same way as similar signals presented by other people. Such evidence allows us to assume that as robot technology develops, there may be no barrier to interaction between social robots and humans,” says doctoral researcher Helena.
1. What does the new study focus on?| A．When robots can respond like humans. |
| B．How humans make eye contact socially. |
| C．The reasons for humans having qualities of social robots. |
| D．Humans’ response when interacting with robots and humans. |
| A．Averted gaze makes no difference to robots. |
| B．Social robots can’t affect humans’ response. |
| C．Robots feel stronger than humans when interacting. |
| D．Eye contact with robots contributes to a positive response. |
| A．They can interact with humans smoothly. |
| B．They will have a side effect on interaction. |
| C．They can have regulating interaction as humans. |
| D．They will send out accurate human linguistic signals. |
| A．By assuming relative effects. | B．By presenting past discoveries. |
| C．By referring to a questionnaire survey. | D．By indicating the result of research. |
