兒童對人形機器人之感知與評價研究

A Study on Children's Perception and Evaluation of Humanoid Robots

本研究目的在於探討兒童對於不同程度擬人外形機器人的態度，透過實驗的執行來了解兒童對於機器人擬人外形的評價，檢視兒童對於不同擬人程度之機器人的態度，進一步探討性別與年齡是否影響兒童對人形機器人的態度。本研究實證結果發現兒童對人形機器人態度支持Mori（1970）所假設的詭異谷理論，此外，兒童對於落於詭異谷前高點之機器人的偏好高於對真人的偏好。根據本研究結果，設計師在設計以兒童為使用對象的機器人時，無需追求高度擬人的外形設計。再者，年齡在兒童評價人形機器人的影響力不若性別顯著，一般而言，年齡介於8到14歲的兒童對於人形機器人的社會吸引和外形吸引的評價是相似的，在性別差異上，研究結果顯示男童比女童更能接受機械形貌的人形機器人；而女童則顯著偏好高度擬人外形的機器人。

This study addresses the attitudes of children toward robots displaying various degrees of anthropomorphic appearance. An experiment was conducted to understand the means by which children evaluate robots across the spectrum of anthropomorphism and to investigate the social and physical attraction children felt toward robots with various degrees of realism. The effects of gender and age were examined further. Results on children's perceptions of anthropomorphic robots empirical support the Uncanny Valley hypothesized by Mori (1970). Further, children prefer the robot at the peak before the uncanny valley to a real person. The results of the study suggest that when designing robots for children, designers need not focus on creating an authentic human-like appearance. In addition, the influence of children's age on their attitudes toward robots is less significant than that of gender. Generally, children aged from 8 to 14 years have similar perceptions of humanoid robots, with respect to the ratings of their social and physical attraction to robots. The observed gender differences indicate that boys accept human-machine robots more than girls do, while girls significantly favor highly human-like robots.