Minato Takashi, Shimada Michihiro, Itakura Shoji, Lee Kang, Ishiguro Hiroshi
Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
Adv Robot. 2006;20(10):1147-1163. doi: 10.1163/156855306778522505.
Our research goal is to discover the principles underlying natural communication among individuals and to establish a methodology for the development of expressive humanoid robots. For this purpose we have developed androids that closely resemble human beings. The androids enable us to investigate a number of phenomena related to human interaction that could not otherwise be investigated with mechanical-looking robots. This is because more human-like devices are in a better position to elicit the kinds of responses that people direct toward each other. Moreover, we cannot ignore the role of appearance in giving us a subjective impression of human presence or intelligence. However, this impression is influenced by behavior and the complex relationship between appearance and behavior. This paper proposes a hypothesis about how appearance and behavior are related, and maps out a plan for android research to investigate this hypothesis. We then examine a study that evaluates the human likeness of androids according to the gaze behavior they elicit. Studies such as these, which integrate the development of androids with the investigation of human behavior, constitute a new research area that fuses engineering and science.
我们的研究目标是发现个体之间自然交流的潜在原理，并建立一种开发具有表现力的类人机器人的方法。为此，我们开发了与人类极为相似的仿人机器人。这些仿人机器人使我们能够研究许多与人类互动相关的现象，而使用外观类似机械的机器人则无法进行此类研究。这是因为更具人类特征的设备更能引发人们相互之间的那种反应。此外，我们不能忽视外观在给我们关于人类存在或智能的主观印象方面所起的作用。然而，这种印象会受到行为以及外观与行为之间复杂关系的影响。本文提出了一个关于外观与行为如何关联的假设，并规划了一项仿人机器人研究计划以探究这一假设。然后，我们考察一项根据仿人机器人引发的注视行为来评估其与人类相似度的研究。诸如此类将仿人机器人开发与人类行为研究相结合的研究，构成了一个融合工程与科学的新研究领域。
