From "Made In" to Mukokuseki: Exploring the Visual Perception of National Identity in Robots

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Seaborn, Katie, Kotani, Haruki, Pennefather, Peter
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Seaborn, Katie
Kotani, Haruki
Pennefather, Peter
author_facet Seaborn, Katie
Kotani, Haruki
Pennefather, Peter
contents People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we explored the notion of "mukokuseki," a visual design characteristic defined by the absence of visual cues to national and ethnic identity in Japanese cultural exports. In a two-phase categorization study (n=212), American (n=110) and Japanese (n=92) participants rated a random selection of nine robot stimuli from America and Japan, plus multinational Pepper. We found evidence of made-in and two kinds of mukokuseki effects. We offer suggestions for the visual design of mukokuseki robots that may interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Our findings have implications for robots and social identity, the viability of robotic exports, and the use of robots internationally.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_16949
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From "Made In" to Mukokuseki: Exploring the Visual Perception of National Identity in Robots
Seaborn, Katie
Kotani, Haruki
Pennefather, Peter
Robotics
Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we explored the notion of "mukokuseki," a visual design characteristic defined by the absence of visual cues to national and ethnic identity in Japanese cultural exports. In a two-phase categorization study (n=212), American (n=110) and Japanese (n=92) participants rated a random selection of nine robot stimuli from America and Japan, plus multinational Pepper. We found evidence of made-in and two kinds of mukokuseki effects. We offer suggestions for the visual design of mukokuseki robots that may interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Our findings have implications for robots and social identity, the viability of robotic exports, and the use of robots internationally.
title From "Made In" to Mukokuseki: Exploring the Visual Perception of National Identity in Robots
topic Robotics
Computers and Society
Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.16949