While we may believe robots are largely functional things for which appearance is irrelevant, initial research suggests that’s far from reality. For instance, research from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory suggests that human facial expressions could be crucial in establishing trust between man and machine.

Similarly, research from Imperial College London explored how robots used in medical settings could be designed to help us interact effectively with them. The researchers wanted to explore how “patient robots” are used to help train medical students, and whether the faces of these machines could help to better communicate feelings of pain, and therefore help to reduce errors and biases during any physical examination.

Forming a bond

Research from Washington State University argues that the “sex” of the robot could also affect how well we bond with it. The researchers suggest that people may actually be happier conversing with a robot in hospitality settings if the robot appears to be female rather than male. This was especially so when the robot was humanoid in appearance.

“People have a tendency to feel more comfort in being cared for by females because of existing gender stereotyping about service roles,” they explain. “That gender stereotype appears to transfer to robot interactions, and it is more amplified when the robots are more human like.”

This was further reinforced by research from Radboud University, which found that people tend to prefer their robots to appear friendly looking. The study found that the context of the interaction was crucially important to how people behaved with the robot and the expectations they had of it. For example, if adults were asked to rescue a robot from a dangerous situation, they were more inclined to do so if it had human-like appearance but less happy if they were the ones being rescued.

“This shows that a human appearance may sometimes form an obstacle for the robot. You should use a robot for the purpose for which it was developed,” the researchers explain. “For example, when it comes to surgical assistance during an operation, you don’t want to be assisted by an apparatus that has clumsy social capacities; in such a case, it’s better to rely on faceless intelligence. As for schools, it’s important that robots not only appear to be competent but that they’re also sociable.”

Accepting support

Research from the University of Cambridge even suggests that the appearance of a robot can affect how likely we are to seek mental health support from them.

The researchers employed two robot well-being coaches to facilitate weekly well-being sessions for 26 employees over a four-week period. Although both robots shared identical voices, facial expressions, and session scripts, the physical appearance of the robots had a significant impact on how participants interacted with them.

Participants who engaged with a toy-like robot reported feeling a stronger connection with their “coach” compared to those who worked with a humanoid-like robot. The researchers suggest that popular culture’s portrayal of robots, where their capabilities are limited only by imagination, shapes people’s perception of them. However, in the real world, robots often fall short of these expectations.

The simpler appearance of the toy-like robot may have created lower expectations among participants, making it easier for them to connect and communicate. In contrast, participants who worked with the humanoid robot found that it was not capable of having interactive conversations, leading to a mismatch between their expectations and reality.

“The most common response we had from participants was that their expectations of the robot didn’t match with reality,” the researchers explain. “We programmed the robots with a script, but participants were hoping there would be more interactivity. It’s incredibly difficult to create a robot that’s capable of natural conversation. New developments in large language models could really be beneficial in this respect.”

Despite this discrepancy, the study demonstrates that robots can be a valuable tool in promoting mental well-being in the workplace.