Exploratory analysis of Sony AIBO users

Abstract

It is important to understand how the cultural background, the age and the gender influence the expectations towards social robots. Although past works studied the user adaptation for some months, the users with multiple years of ownership (heavy users) were not subjects of any experiment to compare these criteria over the years. This exploratory research examines the owners of the discontinued Sony AIBO because these robots have not been abandoned by some enthusiastic users and they are still resold on the secondhand market. 78 Sony AIBO owners were recruited on-line and their quantitative data were analyzed by four independent variables (age, gender, culture, length of ownership), user contribution and model preference points of view. The results revealed the motives to own these robots for years and how the heavy users perceived their social robots after a long period in the robot acceptance phase.

Long-Term Value of Social Robots through the Eyes of Expert Users

“…De Graaf and Ben Allouch explored user expectations with Pleo robot [16], suggesting life-like (but not necessarily humanlike) appearance is important for social robots, and pointing out differences in perceptions between male and female participants. Kertész, and Turunen explored perceptions of long-term users of AIBO robotic dogs, revealing differences between a male technology-oriented perception, and a female companionship-oriented one, combined with culture having a more general influence on perceptions and use [36].…”

“…With combined insights from the literature on social and domestic robots, together with IPAs, the importance of managing expectations [38,45] and perceptions of different populations [20,22,36,38,42,50,61], development [23] and changes over time [15] (including maintenance routines [23,59], and updates to the robots [35]), usefulness [49], personification [41,46], task completion [37], familiarity [18], the overall shape and motion [6,63,65], and context [11,24,40] were all emphasized.…”

“…The knowledge of use patterns beyond 6 months of use (referred to here as "post-acceptance") remains scarce [36]. The scarcity of actual social robots on the market (≈10,000 units sold up to 2017 [47]) is a major barrier preventing further validation of these frameworks of robot acceptance specifically with respect to social robots.…”

Human–dog relationships as a working framework for exploring human–robot attachment: a multidisciplinary review

“…2 Sony AIBO. Fourth (current) generation ( a ) and first to third generations ( b ) (adjusted from Kertész and Turunen 2019 ) …”

“…Because of these capacities, AIBO has been utilized in many research projects with two general research agendas: (1) questionnaires exploring if people consider AIBO as a “real” companion animal and the feelings allocated to this robotic dog and (2) observation of HRI based on behavior analyses (Bartneck et al 2007 ; Friedman et al 2003 ; Kahn Jr et al 2002 ; Kertész and Turunen 2019 ; Melson et al 2005 ). The design of AIBO incorporates key components of dog–human interaction and dog-like communication as a framework for human–robot attachment.…”