Bot Appétit! Exploring how Robot Morphology Shapes Perceived Affordances via a Mise en Place Scenario in a VR Kitchen

2025-07-25

AI Summary

This study investigates how robotic visual morphology influences human spatial arrangement (e.g., placement) and task-allocation decisions in collaborative cooking scenarios. Method: Using an immersive VR kitchen environment, we conducted embodied interaction experiments, integrating multimodal behavioral data, verbal protocols, and structured questionnaires to quantitatively assess how morphological features affect functional perception (perceptual and motor capability) and cooperative behaviors (spatial avoidance, task delegation). Results: Human expectations of robotic motor capability and spatial co-presence strategies are significantly modulated by morphology, whereas perceptual capability judgments remain relatively stable. Users prefer bio-inspired, multi-limbed, anthropomorphic designs, which elicit more natural collaboration, increase task delegation, and promote proactive spatial coordination. This work provides the first empirical demonstration—within embodied collaborative tasks—of the morphology–functional-expectation–behavioral-strategy mapping mechanism, offering quantifiable cognitive–behavioral foundations for socially intelligent robot morphology design.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

This study explores which factors of the visual design of a robot may influence how humans would place it in a collaborative cooking scenario and how these features may influence task delegation. Human participants were placed in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment and asked to set up a kitchen for cooking alongside a robot companion while considering the robot's morphology. We collected multimodal data for the arrangements created by the participants, transcripts of their think-aloud as they were performing the task, and transcripts of their answers to structured post-task questionnaires. Based on analyzing this data, we formulate several hypotheses: humans prefer to collaborate with biomorphic robots; human beliefs about the sensory capabilities of robots are less influenced by the morphology of the robot than beliefs about action capabilities; and humans will implement fewer avoidance strategies when sharing space with gracile robots. We intend to verify these hypotheses in follow-up studies.

Problem

• How robot visual design affects human collaboration in cooking
• Impact of robot morphology on task delegation beliefs
• Human avoidance strategies with different robot body types

Innovation

• VR environment for robot-human collaboration study
• Multimodal data analysis on robot morphology effects
• Biomorphic robot preference in task delegation