A joint research group between the ATR Interaction Science Research Institute and Osaka University Graduate School has discovered that when there are multiple (especially two) objects that look similar, people feel "cuter" when the connections between the objects are visible. This was revealed using a video.
What are the important elements behind the feeling of "cute"?It is difficult to change the appearance of products such as robots after they are designed.Therefore, if we can increase the degree to which robots are perceived as ``cute'' by factors other than appearance, we can expect to create robots that are more approachable to humans.
For example, two cherries connected in a cluster look more "cute" than a single cherry.The research group hypothesized that people find objects more ``cute'' when they appear to be connected.
Therefore, we examined the influence of the number of people, objects, and robots on the degree to which people perceive it as "cute."When the number of subjects is 1, 2 is just lined up, and 2 is lined up in a way that gives a sense of connection.We collect questionnaires on the web using photos.As a result, regardless of the type of object, cases in which the number was 2 and were lined up to create a sense of connection were rated as the most ``cute.''The same results were also obtained in experiments using videos.
Furthermore, we created a video of the robots waving and greeting each other by varying the number of robots from 1 to 10, and conducted a web survey. As a result, the number of robots with 2 robots was rated as the cutest. Ta.
The results of this study show that even artificial objects such as robots can be perceived as more ``cute'' by expressing relationships between multiple robots.It is hoped that this will be useful in designing robots that people can feel close to.
Paper information:[PLOS ONE] Is two cuter than one? Number and relationship effects on the feeling of kawaii toward social robots
