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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1413066
This article is part of the Research Topic Methods in Cognitive Neuroscience: Dance Movement 2023 View all 5 articles

Dancing robots: Aesthetic engagement is shaped by stimulus and knowledge cues to human animacy

Provisionally accepted
Kohinoor Monish Darda Kohinoor Monish Darda 1*Aaron Maiwald Aaron Maiwald 2Tanvi Raghuram Tanvi Raghuram 1*Emily S Cross Emily S Cross 3*
  • 1 Independent researcher, Pune, India
  • 2 Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany
  • 3 ETH Zürich, Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    An increasing presence of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots in the realm of art is moulding the aesthetic identity of the new-age consumer of art. Various questions arise with this development: do cues to the humanness of the origin of an artwork or artist influence our aesthetic preferences? Across two experiments, we investigated how the perception and appreciation of dance is influenced by cues to human animacy by manipulating (1) "agent form" (human-like or robot-like dancer); (2) belief about the source of the movement (human motion capture or computer animation); (3) the source of choreography (human-or computergenerated); and (4) belief about the source of choreography (believe a choreography is humanor computer-generated). Results pointed toward agent congruence -robot agents were preferred when the source of movement was thought to be computer animation (Experiment 1) and when the source of choreography was believed to be computer-generated (Experiment 2).Choreographies believed to be human-generated were preferred (Experiment 2) but participants could not accurately identify the actual source of choreography (Experiment 1). These results persisted above and beyond the effects of age, dance expertise, technological expertise, attitudes toward AI, and how familiar, complex, evocative, technically competent, or reproducible the dance was perceived to be. Dance expertise, technological expertise and attitudes toward AI independently impacted aesthetic judgments. Our findings provide valuable insights to the design and development of robotic dance by identifying the features of a dance choreography and audience characteristics that influence its aesthetic engagement.Additionally, along with creating more refined creative productions by using AI in a dancemaker's toolkit, shaping people's perceptions will be just as crucial for its reception and for better engagement.

    Keywords: robots, dance, aesthetics, social robotics, Choreography, artificial intelligence

    Received: 06 Apr 2024; Accepted: 10 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Darda, Maiwald, Raghuram and Cross. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Kohinoor Monish Darda, Independent researcher, Pune, India
    Tanvi Raghuram, Independent researcher, Pune, India
    Emily S Cross, ETH Zürich, Zurich, 8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.