Disambiguating Anthropomorphism and Anthropomimesis in Human-Robot Interaction

TL;DR

This paper clarifies the concepts of anthropomorphism and anthropomimesis in human-robot interaction, distinguishing between user perception and robot design to aid future research and development.

Contribution

It provides a clear disambiguation of anthropomorphism and anthropomimesis, defining their roles in HRI and social robotics for improved conceptual understanding.

Findings

Defined anthropomorphism as user perception of human-like qualities

Defined anthropomimesis as robot designers creating human-like features

Clarified roles of perceiver and designer in HRI context

Abstract

In this preliminary work, we offer an initial disambiguation of the theoretical concepts anthropomorphism and anthropomimesis in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and social robotics. We define anthropomorphism as users perceiving human-like qualities in robots, and anthropomimesis as robot developers designing human-like features into robots. This contribution aims to provide a clarification and exploration of these concepts for future HRI scholarship, particularly regarding the party responsible for human-like qualities - robot perceiver for anthropomorphism, and robot designer for anthropomimesis. We provide this contribution so that researchers can build on these disambiguated theoretical concepts for future robot design and evaluation.