The Influence of Facial Features on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Social Robot

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barrow, Benedict, Moore, Roger K.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914042665238528
author Barrow, Benedict
Moore, Roger K.
author_facet Barrow, Benedict
Moore, Roger K.
contents Trust and the perception of trustworthiness play an important role in decision-making and our behaviour towards others, and this is true not only of human-human interactions but also of human-robot interactions. While significant advances have been made in recent years in the field of social robotics, there is still some way to go before we fully understand the factors that influence human trust in robots. This paper presents the results of a study into the first impressions created by a social robot's facial features, based on the hypothesis that a `babyface' engenders trust. By manipulating the back-projected face of a Furhat robot, the study confirms that eye shape and size have a significant impact on the perception of trustworthiness. The work thus contributes to an understanding of the design choices that need to be made when developing social robots so as to optimise the effectiveness of human-robot interaction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_13948
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Influence of Facial Features on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Social Robot
Barrow, Benedict
Moore, Roger K.
Robotics
Trust and the perception of trustworthiness play an important role in decision-making and our behaviour towards others, and this is true not only of human-human interactions but also of human-robot interactions. While significant advances have been made in recent years in the field of social robotics, there is still some way to go before we fully understand the factors that influence human trust in robots. This paper presents the results of a study into the first impressions created by a social robot's facial features, based on the hypothesis that a `babyface' engenders trust. By manipulating the back-projected face of a Furhat robot, the study confirms that eye shape and size have a significant impact on the perception of trustworthiness. The work thus contributes to an understanding of the design choices that need to be made when developing social robots so as to optimise the effectiveness of human-robot interaction.
title The Influence of Facial Features on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Social Robot
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13948