Tracking Anthropomorphizing Behavior in Human-Robot Interaction

Existing methodologies to describe anthropomorphism in human-robot interaction often rely either on specific one-time responses to robot behavior, such as keeping the robot's secret, or on post hoc measures, such as questionnaires. Currently, there is no method to describe the dynamics of people's behavior over the course of an interaction and in response to robot behavior. In this paper, I propose a method that allows the researcher to trace anthropomorphizing and non-anthropomorphizing responses to robots dynamically moment-by-moment over the course of human-robot interactions. I illustrate this methodology in a case study and find considerable variation between participants, but also considerable intrapersonal variation in the ways the robot is anthropomorphized. That is, people may respond to the robot as if it was another human in one moment and to its machine-like properties in the next. These findings may influence explanatory models of anthropomorphism.