Exposure to robotic virtual agent affects adoption of intentional stance

Abstract

Understanding how and when humans attribute intentionality to artificial agents is a key issue in contemporary human and technological sciences. This paper addresses the question of whether adopting intentional stance can be modulated by exposure to a 3D animated robot character, and whether this depends on the human-likeness of the character's behavior. We report three experiments investigating how appearance and behavioral features of a virtual character affect humans’ attribution of intentionality toward artificial social agents. The results show that adoption of intentional stance can be modulated depending on participants' expectations about the agent. This study brings attention to specific features of virtual agents and insights for further work in the field of virtual interaction.