Fragile Robot: The Fragility of Robots Induces User Attachment to Robots
This study proposes a concept of fragile robot and expects that the fragility of robots induces user attachment to robots and conducted two experiments to check its validity and confirmed the appropriateness of the concept on an experimental basis.
Abstract
—This paper describes a fragile robot and its psychological effects on humans. Nowadays, user support robots are starting to get into our lives. Many robots are designed to support the user's daily life as much as possible. However, such support can result in the user being forced to live a passive life. In contrast, some studies have reported the usefulness of robots that behave negatively to users. However, it may not be possible to maintain user attachment for a long period of time simply by repeating negative behaviors toward humans in the same way. In this study, we propose a concept of fragile robot and expect that the fragility of robots induces user attachment to robots. We conducted two experiments to check its validity and confirmed the appropriateness of our concept on an experimental basis.