Psychophysics of user acceptance of social cyber-physical systems

A mini-review of the literature, supporting the view on the psychophysical origins of some user acceptance effects of cyber-physical systems (CPSs), is presented and discussed in this paper. Psychophysics implies the existence of a lawful functional dependence between some aspect/dimension of the stimulation from the environment, entering the senses of the human, and the psychological effect that is being produced by this stimulation, as reflected in the subjective responses. Several psychophysical models are discussed in this mini-review, aiming to support the view that the observed effects of reactance to a robot or the uncanny valley phenomenon are essentially the same subjective effects of different intensity. Justification is provided that human responses to technologically and socially ambiguous stimuli obey some regularity, which can be considered a lawful dependence in a psychophysical sense. The main conclusion is based on the evidence that psychophysics can provide useful and helpful, as well as parsimonious, design recommendations for scenarios with CPSs for social applications.