Today, nearly all voice and Internet traffic, including essential military and financial transmissions, travels through undersea fiber-optic cables. Even temporary damage to these lines of communications can have serious consequences, which is why their future security depends on how well nations understand and exploit the next wave of submarine technology.
Two scales were constructed to assess anthropomorphism during human-machine and human-animal interactions. Participants were asked about their tendencies to self-engage in anthropomorphic behaviors and their attributions about others' anthropomorphic behaviors. Results indicated that the tendency to anthropomorphize pets is distinct from the tendency to anthropomorphize artifacts such as cars and computers. Parallel results were obtained for the attributions. Subsequent analyses showed a gender difference for the general tendency to self-engage in anthropomorphic behaviors and the nature of the attributions made for others' anthropomorphic behaviors. Females reported that they anthropomorphized animals more than males. They also made more positive attributions for others' anthropomorphic behaviors toward animals. No gender differences were observed for anthropomorphism toward artifacts. Overall, the results support a necessary distinction between anthropomorphism directed toward animals versus artifacts. They also suggest that gender differences in anthropomorphism need to be considered when designing "intelligent agents" that can interact effectively with humans.
A 208-item scale was developed to measure self-reported anthropomorphic tendencies during interactions with various non-human entities. The potential targets of anthropomorphism included technology-laden machines such as computers, other objects such as backpacks, living things such as houseplants, and abstract entities such as a god or higher power. Scale items assessed the degree to which participants agreed with statements regarding the perceived attributes of the entities, speech directed toward the entities and the treatment of the entities. A factor analysis suggested that the scale measures four independent types of anthropomorphism: “extreme” anthropomorphic tendencies, anthropomorphism of a god or higher power, anthropomorphism of pets, and “negative” anthropomorphism. Further analyses indicated that anthropomorphic tendencies were self-reported when pertaining to pets and a god or higher power. However, participants tended not to self-report inappropriate “negativeâ” anthropomorphism toward computers, cars, microwaves, etc. These disparate findings appear to be due to social desirability of anthropomorphism.
We simulated a military reconnaissance environment and examined the performance of ground robotics operators who needed to utilize sensor images from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to navigate his/her ground robot to the locations of the targets. We also evaluated participants' spatial ability and examined if it affected their performance or perceived workload. Results showed that participants' overall performance (speed and accuracy) was better when s/he had access to images from larger UAVs with fixed orientations, compared to other UAV conditions (baseline-no UAV, micro air vehicle, and UAV with orbiting views). Participants experienced the highest workload when the UAV was orbiting.
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