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Effects of Head Shape, Facial Features, Camera, and Gender on the Perceptions of Rendered Robot Faces

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of several design factors on people’s perceptions of rendered robot faces. Experiment 1 was a 2 × 5 × 2 × 2 mixed 4-way ANOVA design. The research variables were head shape (round versus rectangular), facial features (baseline, cheeks, eyelids, no mouth and no pupils), camera (no camera versus camera), and participants’ gender (male versus female). Twenty static synthetic robot faces were created and presented to the participants. A total of 60 participants took part in the experiment through the online survey via the convenience sampling method. Experiment 2 was a 2 × 2 between-subjects 2-way design, the variables were the head shape (round versus rectangular) and camera (no camera versus camera). Four types of robot heads were created and presented to the participants during a real human–robot interaction. A total of 40 participants invited via the convenience sampling method conducted the experiment in a controlled room. The generated results are as follows: (1) A round robot’s head was considered more humanlike, as having more animacy, friendlier, more intelligent, and more feminine than a rectangular head. (2) No camera was considered to be friendlier. The round head with camera was considered more human-like and more intelligent than the head without a camera. (3) In the evaluation of the rendered robot faces, the female participants’ scores were more sensitive than those of the male participants. (4) The combination of a baseline face and a round head, no pupils or no mouth combined with a rectangular head might make the robot look more mature.

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  1. Department of Design, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chien-Hsiung Chen & Xiaoyu Jia

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  1. Chien-Hsiung Chen
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Chen, CH., Jia, X. Effects of Head Shape, Facial Features, Camera, and Gender on the Perceptions of Rendered Robot Faces. Int J of Soc Robotics 15, 71–84 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-022-00866-1

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