The rise of the emotional robot

April 7, 2008 | Source: New Scientist news service

Figuring out just how far humans are willing to go in shifting the boundaries towards accepting robots as partners rather than mere machines will help designers decide what tasks and functions are appropriate for robots.

To work out which kinds of robots are more likely to coax social responses from humans, researchers led by Frank Heger at Bielefeld University in Germany are scanning the brains of people as they interact with robots.