Robot gaze is different from human gaze: Evidence that robot gaze does not cue reflexive attention

Abstract

Research has shown that, on a behavioral level, robot gaze can elicit social responses typically reserved for interactions with people. On the other hand, we have found that on a lower, reflexive level, robots cue attention differently than social symbols like human faces. This paper presents a popular psychophysics method for measuring attention that is novel to HRI. Using this attention cueing paradigm, and following previous psychology studies showing that faces and eyes are powerful social cues, we examined the attentional effects of robot gaze, human gaze, and socially neutral directional symbols. We discovered that while human faces (including line drawings of human faces) and arrows cued reflexive attention shifts, robot gaze did not. These results suggest a difference in low-level processing of robot versus human gaze, which stands in contrast to similarities found in high-level processing of robot and human gaze.