Avoidant humanoid robotic gaze leads to feeling ostracized

Eye gaze is a fundamental nonverbal cue in human social interactions which is used to signal interest. When eye gaze is not received, individuals feel the painful effects of ostracism (being excluded and ignored). This is between humans – what happens in the ever-increasing human-robot dyads? Previous research has demonstrated that a humanoid robot’s eye gaze toward the observer elicits psychophysiological responses related to attention orienting and affective arousal and valence. Our study (N = 183) investigated the psychological, more complex reactions of ostracism in response to a humanoid robot’s averted versus direct gaze. We also compared these reactions to the responses elicited by a human’s gaze. Our results showed that both a human’s and a humanoid robot’s averted, compared to direct, gaze increased participants’ feelings of ostracism and negative mood, as well as lowered basic needs satisfaction, perceived closeness of the relationship (i.e., relational evaluation), and implicit self?esteem (i.e., indirect assessment of self-worth). Moreover, the negative socioemotional reactions to a humanoid robot’s averted gaze seemed to be equally as powerful as those to a human’s averted gaze. Our results indicate that individuals respond to humanoid robots as if they are a human.