In this study, published in Scientific Reports, the researchers performed electroencephalography, a neurological test that involves attaching electrodes to someone’s head and measuring the electrical activity in the brain, on 15 healthy adults.
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The researchers propose that this means while we react with empathy toward a humanoid form in danger no matter whether it’s a robot or a human, it is more hard to identify with a robot. In four photos, the human and robot hands are positioned in such a manner it appears as if they’ll cut their fingers. But when we refer to “others”, does that include robots? Matthew Howard, a robotics lecturer at Kings College London, told Al Jazeera naturalizing robot behavior to be more human-like will allow humans to predict robot behavior and therefore be safer around it. Is it possible for us to emphasize with humanoid robots? The ‘Uncanny Valley’ theory states that humans are repulsed by robots or animations that look and move nearly but not exactly like human beings, and it is now unclear whether or not humans would experience empathy with machines that do not resemble themselves or, perhaps, who resemble them too closely.
“Thus, humans can attribute humanity to robots and feel their pain”, the study said.
This is important to the way robots are utilized in service capacities because it is the first neurophysiological evidence of humans empathizing with robots and being concerned for their well-being. Since robots are becoming increasingly popular and common in our daily lives, it is necessary to understand our interaction with robots in social situations. However, the EEG results revealed that their brains responded slightly more slowly to the robot images.
“The ascending phase of P3 (350-500 ms after the stimulus presentation) showed a positive shift in the observer for a human in pain in comparison with the no-pain condition, but not for a robot in perceived pain”. However, all difference in the reaction disappeared in the descending phase of the process, at 500 – 650 milliseconds. This probably because of humans do not have the ability take the robot’s perspective into consideration, according to the researchers. This study will contribute to the development of human-friendly robots whom we feel sympathy for and comfortable with.
Would you flinch if you saw a robot get hurt? You don’t feel empathy if you crack your iPhone, but you would feel sad if your robot-friend broke its arm.
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Selmer Bringsjord, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and director of the Rensselaer AI and Reasoning (RAIR) Lab, is programming robots to detect physical changes.
