Intentional Mindset Toward Robots—Open Questions and Methodological Challenges

Abstract

Natural and effective interaction with humanoid robots should involve social cognitive mechanisms of the human brain that normally facilitate social interaction between humans. Recent research has indicated that the presence and efficiency of these mechanisms in human-robot interaction (HRI) might be contingent on the adoption of a set of attitudes, mindsets, and beliefs concerning the robot's inner machinery. Current research is investigating the factors that influence these mindsets, and how they affect HRI. This review focuses on a specific mindset, namely the "intentional mindset" in which intentionality is attributed to another agent. More specifically, we focus on the concept of adopting the intentional stance toward robots, i.e., the tendency to predict and explain the robots' behavior with reference to mental states. We discuss the relationship between adoption of intentional stance and lower-level mechanisms of social cognition, and we provide a critical evaluation of research methods currently employed in this field, highlighting common pitfalls in the measurement of attitudes and mindsets.

Individual Differences in Attitude Toward Robots Predict Behavior in Human-Robot Interaction

“…Together the correlation patterns suggest that the more negative someone is regarding robots, the less s/he is influenced by the presence of the robot and the less s/he shows social facilitation effect. Such a result is in line with the hypothesis of Schellen and Wykowska [11], that negative attitudes towards robots might be a moderating factor for social presence effects.…”

“…Another crucial aspect to examine in HRI is how individual differences in robot perception translate to differences in behavior [11,12]. Indeed, individual differences, such as personality traits or attitudes, have been found to affect the perception and acceptance of robots in social situations [13][14][15][16].…”

Eye contact during joint attention with a humanoid robot modulates oscillatory brain activity

“…, 2017 ; Chevalier et al. , 2019 ; Schellen and Wykowska, 2019 ). Regarding ecological validity, it has been shown that robots that are embodied increase social presence ( Jung and Lee, 2004 ).…”

Repetitive Robot Behavior Impacts Perception of Intentionality and Gaze-Related Attentional Orienting

“…Adopting the intentional stance toward robots can also have positive effects on human performance in HRI as they can facilitate learning (Brown and Howard, 2013 ), improve physical interactions where hand–eye coordination is needed (Carter et al, 2014 ), induce social facilitation effects (Bartneck, 2003 ; Woods et al, 2005 ; Looije et al, 2010 ), and improve interactions in team settings (Breazeal et al, 2005 ). By the same token, not adopting the intentional stance toward social robots can pose a problem for HRI, as humans might be engaging fewer socio-cognitive mechanisms in social interactions with robots, and thereby less social attunement (i.e., activation of socio-cognitive mechanisms) occurs between the two agents (Wiese et al, 2012 , 2018 ; Wykowska et al, 2014 ; Özdem et al, 2016 ; Caruana et al, 2017 ; Ciardo et al, 2020 ; for a review, see Perez-Osorio et al, 2015 ; Wiese et al, 2017 ; Schellen and Wykowska, 2019 ).…”