Credit: Daisuke Iizawa
Daisuke Iizawa (JP), Shunji Yamanaka (JP), Prototyping & Design Laboratory, University of Tokyo (JP)
F.o.G.—Face on Globe is a concept used to study interactions between humans and artifacts. Most interactive robots are designed to have human likeness in order to make their interactions with people more natural. However, if the quality of the conversation and the user’s expectation of the robot’s appearance do not match, it will in fact have the opposite effect.
There is a psychological phenomenon called pareidolia, where people tend to identify faces in inanimate objects. In order to counter this bias, the artists hypothesized that the sphere is the shape that least resembles humans. They made a prototype to explore the question “how can we use design to balance a robot’s appearance and behavior and the user’s expectations?” Their robot is spherical but can shape-shift in order to give a more or less human-like impression. By controlling its shape they can capture how people’s social behavior changes depending on the robot’s form.
Supported by Japan Shunji Yamanaka Laboratory, University of Tokyo, Japan, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Credits
Supported by Japan Shunji Yamanaka Laboratory, University of Tokyo, Japan, and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
