Clark Herbert H, Fischer Kerstin
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130, USA
Department of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, DK-6400 Sonderborg, Denmark
Behav Brain Sci. 2022 Mar 28;46:e21. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X22000668.
Social robots serve people as tutors, caretakers, receptionists, companions, and other social agents. People know that the robots are mechanical artifacts, yet they interact with them as if they were actual agents. How is this possible? The proposal here is that people construe social robots not as social agents , but as of social agents. They interpret them much as they interpret ventriloquist dummies, hand puppets, virtual assistants, and other interactive depictions of people and animals. Depictions as a class consist of three physical scenes with part-by-part mappings between them: (a) a base scene (the raw physical artifact), (b) the depiction proper (the artifact construed as a depiction), and (c) the scene depicted (the scene people are to imagine). With social robots, evidence shows people form the same three scenes plus mappings: They perceive the raw machinery of a robot, construe it as a depiction of a character, and, using the depiction as a guide, engage in the pretense that they are interacting with the character depicted. With social robots, people also recognize three classes of agents - the characters depicted, the intended recipients of the depictions (those who view or interact with the robots), and the authorities responsible for the robots (the designers, makers, and owners). Construing social robots as depictions, we argue, accounts for many phenomena not covered by alternative models.
社交机器人作为导师、护理员、接待员、陪伴者以及其他社交角色为人们服务。人们知道机器人是机械制品，但他们与机器人互动时就好像它们是真实的角色。这怎么可能呢？这里的提议是，人们并非将社交机器人视为社交角色，而是视为社交角色的一种呈现。他们对社交机器人的解读方式与他们解读腹语表演者的人偶傀儡、手偶、虚拟助手以及其他人物和动物的互动描绘的方式大致相同。作为一个类别，描绘由三个物理场景组成，它们之间存在逐部分的映射关系：(a) 基础场景（原始物理制品），(b) 描绘本身（被视为描绘的制品），以及 (c) 所描绘的场景（人们要想象的场景）。对于社交机器人，有证据表明人们形成了相同的三个场景以及映射关系：他们感知机器人的原始机械结构，将其视为一个角色的描绘，并以该描绘为指导，假装他们正在与所描绘的角色进行互动。对于社交机器人，人们还认识到三类角色——所描绘的角色、描绘的预期受众（那些观看或与机器人互动的人）以及负责机器人的权威人士（设计师、制造商和所有者）。我们认为，将社交机器人视为描绘可以解释许多替代模型未涵盖的现象。
