A comparative psychological evaluation of a robotic avatar in Dubai and Japan

This study focused on the psychological evaluation of an avatar robot in two distinct regions, Dubai in the Middle East and Japan in the Far East. Dubai has experienced remarkable development in advanced technology, while Japan boasts a culture that embraces robotics. These regions are distinctively characterized by their respective relationships with robotics. In addition, the use of robots as avatars is anticipated to increase, and this research aimed to compare the psychological impressions of people from these regions when interacting with an avatar as opposed to a human.

Considering that avatars can be presented on screens or as physical robots, two methodologies were employed: a video presentation survey (Study 1, Dubai: n = 120, Japan: n = 120) and an experiment involving live interactions with a physical robot avatar (Study 2, Dubai: n = 28, Japan: n = 30).

Results from the video presentations indicated that participants from Dubai experienced significantly lower levels of discomfort towards the avatar compared to their Japanese counterparts. In contrast, during live interactions, Japanese participants showed a notably positive evaluation towards a Japanese human operator. The findings suggest that screen-presented avatars may be more readily accepted in Dubai, while humans were generally preferred over avatars in terms of positive evaluations when physical robots were used as avatars. The study also discusses the implications of these findings for the appropriate tasks for avatars and the relationship between cultural backgrounds and avatar evaluations.