The Effect on User Impression of Household Robots’ Clothing Changes

Abstract

In this study, we focus on clothing as a design aspect of robots, and investigate users’ impressions when robots change their clothing to suit the task at hand. Clothing can have an effect of showing one’s role and abilities to others. By utilizing this effect in the appearance of robots, it may be possible to express multiple roles and abilities for different tasks with a single robot, which could be beneficial in robot design. In the experiment, we investigated the difference in user impressions when the robot changed its clothing to suit the task at hand compared to when it did not. This was done through a video-watching experiment conducted on a simulator. The results of the experiment showed that when the robot changed its clothing to suit the task at hand, users perceived its appearance as appropriate for the task. This suggests a potential for effectively conveying the robot’s abilities and characteristics to users through its clothing.