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Review
. 2024 Jan 31:15:1295279.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1295279. eCollection 2024.

Perception of robotic actions and the influence of gender

Miriam Abel  1 , Giovanni Buccino  2 , Ferdinand Binkofski  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Perception of robotic actions and the influence of gender

Miriam Abel et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

In our society interaction with robots is becoming more and more frequent since robots are not only used in the industry, but increasingly often in assistance and in health system. Perception of robots and their movements is crucial for their acceptance. Here we shortly review basic mechanisms of perception of actions, and then of perception of robotic and human movements. The literature demonstrates that there are commonalities, but also differences in the perception of human and robotic movements. Especially interesting are biologic gender differences in the perception of robotic movements. The results show that males seem to be more sensitive to the differences between robotic and anthropomorphic movements, whereas females seem not to perceive such differences. However, females transfer more anthropomorphic features to robotic movements. While looking at the brain activation during perception of humanoid and robotic movements in different genders one can conclude that different strategies are used; female seem to analyse robotic movements online, while male seem to use previous knowledge from interaction with robots. Further research is needed to specify more such gender differences.

Keywords: action observation system; gender influence on perception of robotic movements; mirror neuron system (MNS); perception of humanoid movements; perception of robotic movements.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

References

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