Android science is an interdisciplinary framework for studying human interaction and cognition based on the premise that a very humanlike
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...
(that is, an
android) can elicit human-directed social responses in human beings. The android's ability to elicit human-directed social responses enables researchers to employ an android in experiments with human participants as an apparatus that can be controlled more precisely than a human actor.
While mechanical-looking robots may be able to elicit social responses to some extent, a robot that looks and acts like a human being is in a better position to stand in for a human actor in social, psychological, cognitive, or neuroscientific experiments. This gives experiments with androids a level of ecological validity with respect to human interaction found lacking in experiments with mechanical-looking robots.
An experimental setting for human-android interaction also provides a testing ground for models concerning how cognitive or neural processing influence human interaction, because models can be implemented in the android and tested in interaction with human participants. In android science, cognitive science and engineering are understood as enjoying a synergistic relationship in which the results from a deepening understanding of human interaction and the development of increasingly humanlike androids feed into each other.
Android science can be broadly construed to include all the effects of engineered human likeness, such as the impact of humanlike robots on society or the study of the relationship between
anthropomorphism and human perception. The latter relates to an observation made by
Masahiro Mori that human beings are more sensitive to deviations from humanlike behavior or appearance in near-human forms. Mori refers to this phenomenon as the
uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley ( ja, 不気味の谷 ''bukimi no tani'') is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid object ...
.
[Mori, M. (1970). Bukimi no tani (The uncanny valley; K. F. MacDorman & T. Minato, Trans.). ''Energy, 7''(4), 33–35.] In android science this heightened sensitivity is seen as a diagnostic tool for enhancing the human likeness of an android.
See also
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Affective computing
Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer science, psychology, and cognitive science. While some ...
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Android
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Cognitive science
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Human-robot interaction
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Robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...
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Uncanny valley
In aesthetics, the uncanny valley ( ja, 不気味の谷 ''bukimi no tani'') is a hypothesized relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The concept suggests that humanoid object ...
References
External links
Android Science Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Android Science
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