Red faced robots: would you feel embarrassed for a machine?
A recent study has revealed the bizarre complexities of human emotion, reporting that people experience second-hand sympathetic embarrassment for robots they witness in humiliating scenarios.
Delving headfirst into the intriguing realm of human-robot interactions, a virtual reality study has revealed that humans cannot help but cringe while witnessing robots make fools of themselves.
Researchers from Toyohashi University of Technology (Japan) set out to ask the following question: do people have empathic reactions when observing robots, rather than humans, in embarrassing situations?
To investigate this fascinating concept, the team measured participants’ reactions to various virtual scenarios of human and robot avatars being placed in both embarrassing situations, such as walking into a glass door instead of through it, and non-embarrassing situations (control). Both empathic embarrassment (experiencing feelings of embarrassment while witnessing someone else’s embarrassment) and cognitive empathy (understanding how another person thinks and feels in a situation) were assessed in the participants using a 7-point Likert scale, where participants were asked to rate their own embarrassment as well as approximating the level of the avatar’s embarrassment.
In addition to these subjective ratings, participants’ reactions were also objectively assessed using quantitative measures of skin conductance responses, a well-known indicator emotional arousal intensity.
The participants self-reported feelings of both empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy for both human and robot avatars when witnessing them in embarrassing situations. Intriguingly, empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy were significantly higher for avatars in embarrassing environments compared to non-embarrassing environments, regardless of whether they were human or robot.
Although there was a significantly higher level of both empathic embarrassment and cognitive empathy towards the human avatar compared to the robot avatar in both embarrassing and non-embarrassing situations, participant physiological reactions (skin conductance responses) were not significantly different between human and robot avatars.
Harin Hapuarachchi, the lead researcher, declared, “Our study provides valuable insights into the evolving nature of human-robot relationships. As technology continues to integrate into our daily lives, understanding the emotional responses we have towards robots is crucial. This research opens up new avenues for exploring the boundaries of human empathy and the potential challenges and benefits of human-robot interactions.”
These findings are particularly interesting as they demonstrate that humans are able to feel a certain level of empathy towards robots. There was a significant difference between self-reported empathic embarrassment towards humans compared to robots, suggesting that our understanding of robots’ emotional experiences differs from that of humans. However, the fact that the participants did feel some level of empathic embarrassment towards robot avatars implies that they perceive the robots as being self-aware, with the ability to self-reflect. This expands upon our knowledge of human empathy, as well as offering promising applications within psychology, robotics and man-machine interactions.
In an ever-transforming digital world, research such as this is extremely important in understanding how interacting with machines and robots may affect humans socially and emotionally, which in turn can impact both our mental and physical wellbeing. Who knows, the landscape of the future may just involve forming relationships with sleek metal mechanisms or abstract algorithms.
