On the Eeriness of Service Robots with Emotional Capabilities

The uncanny valley hypothesis suggests that high human-likeness of humanoid robots is associated with feelings of uncanniness (eeriness, creepiness). Based on the literature on mind perception two aspects of human-likeness were distinguished. An experiment showed that a robot's capacity to feel (experience) leads to stronger feelings of uncanniness than a robot's capacity to plan ahead and to exert self-control (agency), which is still more uncanny than a robot's function as a tool. Theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed.