Robotic Chef Versus Human Chef: The Effects of Anthropomorphism, Novel Cues, and Cooking Difficulty Level on Food Quality Prediction.

Robots have been increasingly common in hospitality and tourism, especially being favored under the threat of COVID-19. However, people generally do not think robots are appropriate for cooking food in hotels and restaurants, possibly because they hold low quality predictions for robot-cooked food. This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing people's quality prediction for robot-cooked food. In three experiments, participants viewed pictures of human and robotic chefs and dishes cooked by them, and then made food quality predictions and rated their perceptions of the chefs. The results showed that participants predicted the foods cooked by robotic chefs were above average quality; however, they consistently held lower food quality prediction for robotic chefs than human chefs, regardless of dishes' cooking difficulty level, novel cues in chefs and food, or the anthropomorphism level of robotic chefs. The results also showed that increasing the appearance of robotic chefs from low or medium to high anthropomorphism, or enabling robotic chefs to cook high cooking difficulty level food could promote food quality prediction. These results revealed the current acceptance of robot-cooked food, suggesting possible ways to improve food quality predictions.

The impact of social distancing on tourists' preferences for anthropomorphism

Social distancing is an effective way to reduce infection risk during pandemics, such as COVID-19. It is important for the tourism industry to understand the effect of social distancing on tourist behavior to better adapt to this emerging environment. This study investigates the role of social distancing in tourists' preferences for anthropomorphism. Based on three experimental studies, this study found that tourists tend to prefer anthropomorphism more under conditions of social distancing (vs. nonsocial distancing). This effect was induced by the higher perceived warmth of anthropomorphism when one had to practice social distancing. Such effects are only significant among tourists with higher levels of interdependent self-construal. This study makes significant theoretical contributions and provides important practical implications for tourism marketing and service design during pandemic and epidemic crises.

Hanging Out with My Pandemic Pal: Contextualizing Motivations of Anthropomorphizing Voice Assistants during COVID-19

COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the way people connect, collaborate, and socialize. With the ongoing pandemic amplifying people's feelings of loneliness, voice assistants are growing as a pandemic-era staple of supporting people's well-being and mitigating feelings of disconnectedness. Combining the uses and gratification approach and theory of anthropomorphism, this study examined social attraction and social presence as drivers for people to anthropomorphize voice assistants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, this study investigated whether loneliness, social disconnection, and attachment can moderate the effect of social attraction and social presence on the anthropomorphism of voice assistants. Drawing on survey data from 458 US voice assistant users, the results indicated that social attraction and social presence positively affect peoples' anthropomorphism toward voice assistants. Moreover, the moderating effects of loneliness and social disconnection were examined and found positive impacts on the effect of social presence on anthropomorphism. The findings have implications for theorizing the anthropomorphism of digital media when face-to-face communication is less available. This study is also helpful for voice assistants' developers and brands to design these smart devices appealing to customers and fostering a more customized and more robust user-technology interaction.

"Hello, garden eel here:” insights from emerging humanature relations at the aquarium during COVID-19

Over one billion people worldwide were under social isolation restrictions between April and May 2020. While humans felt the weight of being isolated under lockdown, nonhuman animals accustomed to continuous human connection had minimized exposure at different animal tourism sites and institutions – such as zoos and aquariums. One interesting case comes from garden eels, which according to their caretakers, were particularly susceptible to isolation from humans and required immediate action: Facetime calls with humans. In this research insight, I explore the new technologically mediated humanimal communication practice between humans and garden eels at the Sumida Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan. "Remembering humans” is explored as a humanature cultural discourse that emerged from humanity's social distancing phenomena, seemingly bridging humanature connection amidst the multitude of discourses that removed humanity from nature. This discourse also functions within a form of tourist gaze in tourism institutions. Even though small in scope, this cultural discourse analysis brings to surface one way we have discursively engaged with our solitude during quarantine: mirroring it on more-than-human animals' experiences. Further investigations about this, and other humanature emerging communication practices, are needed to better understand how the social isolation phenomena impacted communication meanings about humanature relations.

The effects of appearance personification of service robots on customer decision-making in the product recommendation context

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has made contactless services such as those provided by robots increasingly pervasive. Some stores are gradually adopting service robots to sell products, which has not been explored in previous research. This study aims to explore how appearance personification of service robots affects customer decision-making in the product recommendation context.Design/methodology/approachBased on authentic in-store product recommendation service interactions, an experiment for three simulated scenarios was conducted and data was collected from 338 valid samples.FindingsThe results show appearance personification has a positive impact on customer purchase behavior while it has negative impacts on customer decision time and degree of hesitation.Originality/valueThis study not only enriches the literature on application scenarios of service robots but also supplements the literature on various customer decision-making variables in the field of service robots. It provides important practical guidance for designing robots to optimize their impact on customer decision-making.

The effect of disease anthropomorphism on compliance with health recommendations.

The present article examines how disease anthropomorphism affects compliance with recommendations for preventing the disease. We find that consumers are more likely to comply with health recommendations when the disease is described in anthropomorphic (vs. non-anthropomorphic) terms because anthropomorphism increases psychological closeness to the disease, which increases perceived vulnerability. We demonstrate the effect of disease anthropomorphism on health compliance in seven studies with several diseases (COVID-19, breast cancer), manipulations of anthropomorphism (first person and third person; with and without an image), and participant populations (the US and China). We test the proposed pathway through psychological closeness and perceived vulnerability with sequential mediation analyses and moderation-of-process approaches, and we rule out alternative accounts based on known consequences of anthropomorphism and antecedents of health compliance. This research contributes to the theory and practice of health communication and to the growing literature on how the anthropomorphism of negative entities affects consumers' judgments and behaviors. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00891-6.

Is it the best for barista robots to serve like humans? A multidimensional anthropomorphism perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of contactless service robots in hospitality industries. However, the key drivers of consumer behaviors against service robots have been ill-understood. This study examines the interactive relationships between the physical (visual features) and psychological (service autonomy) dimensions of service-robot anthropomorphism and their impacts on consumer acceptance of service robots. Adopting an experimental vignette method (EVM) with 402 participants, the study reveals that the impacts of visual features on consumers' intention are affected by the level of service robots' autonomy;particularly, consumers showed the highest intention when the robots have medium visual features and high autonomy while their intention became lower for the same level of visual features with low autonomy. Interestingly, consumers showed the lowest intention with high level visual features, regardless of the levels of autonomy. Our results also show that human identity threats and consumer resistance play a significant counterproductive mechanism between service robot anthropomorphism and consumers' intention. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Grounded by Mother Nature's Revenge.

Leisure air travel is a popular form of tourism, but its emissions are a major contributor to anthropogenic climate change. Restrictions to leisure air travel have previously received little support; however, the same restrictions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have been popular. This support is unlikely to persist in a postpandemic world, highlighting the need for alternative ways to improve support for reducing leisure air travel. Anthropomorphism of nature has consistently predicted proenvironmental behavior, which has been mediated by guilt felt for harm to the environment. This research is the first empirical study to explore this relationship in the context of COVID-19, where it examined support for restricting leisure air travel to help mitigate (1) COVID-19 and (2) climate change. In an experimental online study, Australian residents (N = 325, Mage = 54.48, SDage = 14.63, 62% women) were recruited through social media. Anthropomorphism of nature in the context of COVID-19 (AMP-19) was manipulated through exposure to a news article. Participants then completed measures of environmental guilt and support for restricting leisure air travel to mitigate COVID-19 (LAT-19) and to mitigate climate change (LAT-CC). A significant indirect effect was observed in both models, such that AMP-19 predicted environmental guilt which in turn predicted LAT-19 (f2 = .26; BCI [0.66, 3.87]) and LAT-CC (f2 = .45; BCI [0.84, 5.06]). The results imply that anthropomorphism of nature in the context of COVID-19 can improve attitudes toward this proenvironmental behavior, with greater support when this was to mitigate climate change. Implications are discussed.

A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Chatbot (Otis) for Health Anxiety Management: Mixed Methods Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: An increase in health anxiety was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to physical distancing restrictions and a strained mental health system, people were unable to access support to manage health anxiety. Chatbots are emerging as an interactive means to deliver psychological interventions in a scalable manner and provide an opportunity for novel therapy delivery to large groups of people including those who might struggle to access traditional therapies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this mixed methods pilot study was to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, engagement, and effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based chatbot (Otis) as an early health anxiety management intervention for adults in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Users were asked to complete a 14-day program run by Otis, a primarily decision tree-based chatbot on Facebook Messenger. Health anxiety, general anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty, personal well-being, and quality of life were measured pre-intervention, postintervention, and at a 12-week follow-up. Paired samples t tests and 1-way ANOVAs were conducted to investigate the associated changes in the outcomes over time. Semistructured interviews and written responses in the self-report questionnaires and Facebook Messenger were thematically analyzed. RESULTS: The trial was completed by 29 participants who provided outcome measures at both postintervention and follow-up. Although an average decrease in health anxiety did not reach significance at postintervention (P=.55) or follow-up (P=.08), qualitative analysis demonstrated that participants perceived benefiting from the intervention. Significant improvement in general anxiety, personal well-being, and quality of life was associated with the use of Otis at postintervention and follow-up. Anthropomorphism, Otis' appearance, and delivery of content facilitated the use of Otis. Technical difficulties and high performance and effort expectancy were, in contrast, barriers to acceptance and engagement of Otis. CONCLUSIONS: Otis may be a feasible, acceptable, and engaging means of delivering CBT to improve anxiety management, quality of life, and personal well-being but might not significantly reduce health anxiety.

Be Good to Your Mother (Earth): The Relationship between Anthropomorphising Nature, Financial Insecurity, and Support for Pro-environmental Policies in the Context of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Anthropomorphism of nature is known to be related to pro-environmental outcomes; however, little is known about these variables in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. The economic impact of the prolonged lockdowns may disrupt the historical relationship between these variables, as financial insecurity may compete with environmental concerns for consideration. This study examined the relationship between anthropomorphism of nature the context of COVID-19, and pro-environmental support, and the potential moderating role of financial insecurity in this relationship. It was hypothesised that anthropomorphism of nature in the context of COVID-19 would have a lesser effect on pro-environmental support for individuals who experienced financial insecurity during the pandemic. Participants (N=615; M age=48.71, SD age=17.50; 70% female) completed self-report measures of anthropomorphism of nature, anthropomorphism of nature in the context of COVID-19, financial insecurity, and a measure of support for pro-environmental policies in the economic recovery from COVID-19. Results demonstrated that, after controlling for general anthropomorphism of nature, anthropomorphism of nature in the context of COVID-19 predicted pro-environmental support (R 2 = .05, F(4, 610) = 8.36, p < .001). However, contrary to expectation, pro-environmental support was higher in those experiencing financial insecurity compared to those who were financially secure (B = -2.65, BootSE= .93, p = .004, 95% BootCI [-4.47, -.83]). Financial insecurity also did not moderate the relationship between anthropomorphism of nature in the COVID-19 context and pro-environmental support. Furthermore, the general tendency to anthropomorphise nature was not a significant predictor of support for pro-environmental policies. These findings have important implications for understandings of anthropomorphism, financial insecurity, and environmental protection as well as for public policy on economic recovery in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

AI service impacts on brand image and customer equity: empirical evidence from China

This paper examines the relations among AI service attributes, brand image, brand familiarity and customer equity. The proposed relationships were tested by structural equation modeling of survey data of 210 usable responses in China. Test results indicate that problem-solving ability, accuracy, and customization of AI service have significant positive effects on brand image;the three constructs of customer equity (value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity) are all positively and strongly affected by brand image. Moreover, brand familiarity moderates the effect of customization, interaction, and problem-solving ability on brand image. By bringing together AI literature and consumer behavior literature, this research sheds light on the effectiveness of AI service in enhancing brand image and customer equity. This has important theoretical value in enriching the streams of AI and brand research. Additionally, this research integrates the AI technology within a corporate brand management strategy and offers practitioners and marketers in post-COVID era with a model with which they can find new ways to meet consumer demands and improve brand image via AI technology.

The Assistant Personal Robot Project: From the APR-01 to the APR-02 Mobile Robot Prototypes

This paper describes the evolution of the Assistant Personal Robot (APR) project developed at the Robotics Laboratory of the University of Lleida, Spain. This paper describes the first APR-01 prototype developed, the basic hardware improvement, the specific anthropomorphic improvements, and the preference surveys conducted with engineering students from the same university in order to maximize the perceived affinity with the final APR-02 mobile robot prototype. The anthropomorphic improvements have covered the design of the arms, the implementation of the arm and symbolic hand, the selection of a face for the mobile robot, the selection of a neutral facial expression, the selection of an animation for the mouth, the application of proximity feedback, the application of gaze feedback, the use of arm gestures, the selection of the motion planning strategy, and the selection of the nominal translational velocity. The final conclusion is that the development of preference surveys during the implementation of the APR-02 prototype has greatly influenced its evolution and has contributed to increase the perceived affinity and social acceptability of the prototype, which is now ready to develop assistance applications in dynamic workspaces.

Anthropomorphic or non-anthropomorphic? Effects of biological sex in observation of actions in a digital human model and a gantry robot model.

Robots are ever more relevant for everyday life, such as healthcare or rehabilitation, as well as for modern industrial environment. One important issue in this context is the way we perceive robots and their actions. From our previous study, evidence exists that sex can affect the way people perceive certain robot's actions. In our fMRI study, we analyzed brain activations of female and male participants, while they observed anthropomorphic and robotic movements performed by a human or a robot model. While lying in the scanner, participants rated the perceived level of anthropomorphic and robotic likeness of movements in the two models. The observation of the human model and the anthropomorphic movements similarly activated the biological motion coding areas in posterior temporal and parietal areas. The observation of the robot model activated predominantly areas of the ventral stream, whereas the observation of robotic movements activated predominantly the primary and higher order motor areas. To note, this later activation originated mainly from female participants, whereas male participants activated, in both robot model and robotic movements contrasts, areas in the posterior parietal cortex. Accordingly, the general contrast of sex suggests that men tend to use the ventro-dorsal stream most plausibly to rely on available previous knowledge to analyze the movements, whereas female participants use the dorso-dorsal and the ventral streams to analyze online the differences between the movement types and between the different models. The study is a first step toward the understanding of sex differences in the processing of anthropomorphic and robotic movements.

Customers’ perceptions of hotel AI-enabled voice assistants: does brand matter?

Purpose>Extending the technology acceptance model (TAM) to a new context, the purpose of this paper is to propose an integrative model of the brand of artificial intelligence-enabled voice assistants (AI-EVA) and customers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions of using AI-EVA in hotels. Moderating effects of construal levels and hotel scales were examined.Design/methodology/approach>This paper adopted a mixed method approach. A qualitative and phenomenological methodology was adopted in Study 1 to explore hotel customers’ experience with AI-EVA. Study 2 applied experimental design to investigate the effects of the brand of AI-EVA and construal level on customers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions of using AI-EVA. Based on Studies 1 and 2 results, Study 3 examined how the brand of AI-EVA and hotel scale affect customers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions of using AI-EVA during hotel stays.Findings>This research found that customers perceive a higher level of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and anthropomorphism when AI-EVA is branded (vs off-brand). Perceived usefulness positively affects customers’ intention to use and to spread positive word-of-mouth. Anxiety of using AI-enabled devices and privacy concerns inhibit customers’ intention to use AI-EVA. Anthropomorphism increases customers’ willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth. Construal level moderates the effect of the brand of AI-EVAs on perceived ease of use and anthropomorphism. Hotel scale moderates the effect of brand on perceived usefulness.Originality/value>This paper is one of the first attempts to uncover and integrate different factors underlying customers’ perceptions of using AI-EVA in an extended TAM in hotel settings. This paper provides an integrative model extending the TAM to a new context by deploying a mixed-method approach across three studies.

Humanizing Chatbots: The Effect of Fear from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Does fear of COVID-19 shape consumers’ tendency to anthropomorphize chatbots? To answer this question, this paper analyzed data from a survey of 377 US participants. Grounded in the three-factor theory of anthropomorphism, our results showed that fear of COVID-19 increases consumers’ tendency to imbue chatbots with human-like characteristics, which in turn leads to increased intention to use chatbot-powered mobile apps. In addition, our results also showed that consumers’ sensation-seeking (versus pragmatism-seeking) tendency toward using mobile apps moderated the indirect effect of fear on intention to use via perceived anthropomorphism. Our findings provide both theoretical and practical implications, especially with the recent call for utilizing chatbots in customer service due to the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Virtual Reality for Safe Testing and Development in Collaborative Robotics: Challenges and Perspectives

Collaborative robots (cobots) could help humans in tasks that are mundane, dangerous or where direct human contact carries risk. Yet, the collaboration between humans and robots is severely limited by the aspects of the safety and comfort of human operators. In this paper, we outline the use of extended reality (XR) as a way to test and develop collaboration with robots. We focus on virtual reality (VR) in simulating collaboration scenarios and the use of cobot digital twins. This is specifically useful in situations that are difficult or even impossible to safely test in real life, such as dangerous scenarios. We describe using XR simulations as a means to evaluate collaboration with robots without putting humans at harm. We show how an XR setting enables combining human behavioral data, subjective self-reports, and biosignals signifying human comfort, stress and cognitive load during collaboration. Several works demonstrate XR can be used to train human operators and provide them with augmented reality (AR) interfaces to enhance their performance with robots. We also provide a first attempt at what could become the basis for a human–robot collaboration testing framework, specifically for designing and testing factors affecting human–robot collaboration. The use of XR has the potential to change the way we design and test cobots, and train cobot operators, in a range of applications: from industry, through healthcare, to space operations.

Online shopping during the Covid-19 crisis: the impact of anthropomorphic virtual agents on consumers’ psychological states

Because of the unpredictability and uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, online shopping and the use of artificial intelligence featured in the e-commerce have helped companies in attracting clients through a better online shopping environment and experience. However, the e-commerce still lacks human warmth to pretend and equalise with in-store human interactions and experience. This paper addresses this issue by examining the anthropomorphic characteristics of the embodied virtual agent and by measuring their impact on the user’s state of flow and telepresence experience. To identify the characteristics that could potentially make virtual agents more ‘humanised’, an exploratory approach was implemented. An experimentation survey with 660 internet users followed to test the relation between the anthropomorphic dimensions of embodied virtual agents and consumers’ psychological states and online word of mouth. Our findings confirm the influence of the anthropomorphic characteristics investigated in improving consumers’ psychological states. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

New Work Arrangements - A Review of Concepts and Theories

[...]articles from the special issue are assigned to three categories: (1) New Organization, (2) New Leadership, and (3) New Learning. [...]studies have shown that such arrangements do not necessarily benefit all groups of workers equally (Kossek & Lautsch, 2017) and may come with new challenges like blurring work-life boundaries or protecting leisure time and psychological detachment. [...]New Work arrangements may require new forms of leadership (Banks et al., 2019;Sheninger, 2019). Ute Rademacher, Ulrike Weber, and Cassandra Zinn focus on informal rules and social practices that are established in the work-related use of smartphones. Since professional use of the smartphone can significantly blur the line between work and leisure, communication rules are important to ensure psychological detachment after working hours. Future work may be dedicated to studying these technological developments, which have the potential to spur profound transformations in a wide range of HR and organization processes. [...]the COVID-19 pandemic has provided an unintended global 'field experiment', and new unforeseen issues have emerged, such as the phenomenon of 'Zoom-fatigue', or the prevalence of psychological problems related to social isolation in virtual settings (Brunsbach, Kattenbach & Weber, 2021).

Reducing Loneliness Among Aging Adults: The Roles of Personal Voice Assistants and Anthropomorphic Interactions.

The perception of feeling lonely is an influential factor in determining quality of life among aging adults. As the US Census Bureau projects that the number of Americans ages 65 and older will double by 2060, reducing loneliness is imperative. Personal voice assistants (PVAs) such as Amazon's Echo offer the ease-of-use of voice control with a friendly, helpful artificial intelligence. This study aimed to understand the influence of a PVA on loneliness reduction among adults of advanced ages, i.e., 75+, and explore anthropomorphism as a potential underlying mechanism. Participants (N = 16) ages 75 or older used an Amazon Echo PVA for 8 weeks in an independent living facility in the Midwest. Surveys were used to collect information about perceived loneliness, and PVA interaction data was recorded and analyzed. Participants consistently exceeded the required daily interactions. As hypothesized, after the first 4 weeks of the intervention, aging adults reported significantly lower loneliness (baseline mean = 2.22, SD = 0.42; week 4 mean = 1.99, SD = 0.45, Z = -2.45, and p = 0.01). Four dominant anthropomorphic themes emerged after thematic analysis of the entire 8 weeks' PVA interaction data (Cohen's Kappa = 0.92): (1) greetings (user-initiated, friendly phrases); (2) comments/questions (user-initiated, second-person pronoun), (3) polite interactions (user-initiated, direct-name friendly requests), (4) reaction (user response to Alexa). Relational greetings predicted loneliness reductions in the first 4 weeks and baseline loneliness predicted relational greetings with the PVA during the entire 8 weeks, suggesting that anthropomorphization of PVAs may play a role in mitigating loneliness in aging adults.

Anthropomorphising nature in times of crisis: A serial mediation model from connectedness to nature via anthropomorphism on support for COVID-19 travel restrictions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread travel restrictions to reduce the spread of the virus. It is therefore necessary to understand factors that lead to support for these imposed travel restrictions. Given the reduced environmental impact (e.g., reduced pollution) resulting from travel restrictions, these restrictions can be viewed through a pro-environmental lens. This study aimed to examine the influence of the well-supported predictor of pro-environmental behaviour, connectedness to nature, on support for COVID-19 travel restrictions. To understand why connectedness to nature may predict support for travel restrictions, mediators of this relationship were examined. Anthropomorphism of nature is reasoned to accompany connectedness to nature, and can involve anthropomorphism in various forms (i.e., generalised, and context-specific anthropomorphism). This study (N=270) examined a mediation model whereby anthropomorphism of nature (general) and anthropomorphism of nature in COVID-19 (context-specific) were serial mediators of the relationship between connectedness to nature and support for travel restrictions. Individual pathways of the model were significant, as were the indirect effects, providing support for the serial mediation model, with these predictors accounting for 13% of the variance in support for COVID-19 travel restrictions. Implications of this research are discussed and include promotion of connectedness to nature as well as considering anthropomorphic message framing.