What is it about?
People are good at estimating the amount of time that passes between two events that occur in the physical environment, but they make systematic errors in time estimation when those events involve human actions and their outcomes. Researchers believe this reflects beliefs about human agency. Our studies show that when people interacted with a robot in ways that made it seem like a machine, robot actions are treated like any other physical event (i.e., accurate time perception). However when people interacted with a robot in ways that made it seem like a social being, the same robot actions were treated like human actions (i.e., inaccurate time perception).
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Photo by Katja Anokhina on Unsplash
Why is it important?
As artificial intelligence, including robots, plays an increasing role in people's daily lives, it is important to understand the conditions that encourage people to view such 'tools' as machines or as social beings. This may have implications for how robots are utilised in a variety of contexts ranging from customer service to healthcare assistance.
Perspectives
I've always been fascinated in people's tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-humans (everything from their computers and cars to their dogs and cats), and working with my co-authors opened a door to investigating a key element of this: the sense that humans (and sometimes machines and animals) do things intentionally (which gives rise the sorts of cognitive and emotional reactions we have when our car doesn't start or our dog misbehaves). I hope others will find the questions we've asked (and the answers we've found) as interesting as I have!
Natalie Wyer
University of East Anglia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Observed nonhumanoid robot actions induce vicarious agency when perceived as social actors, not as objects., Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance, June 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0001351.
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