Touched by robots: effects of physical contact and proactiveness

Even though robots' physical embodiment makes it likely humans will come into physical contact with robots, the effects of touch on attitudes in human-robot interaction are still relatively unknown. This survey and video-based, experiment (N=199) investigates the effects of touch and robots interactions. Results show that physical contact and autonomous behavior interact in their effects on perceived machine-likeness and dependability. Attitudes towards robots in general also affected the influence of touch on perceptions of a robot.