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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Human-Robot Interaction
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frobt.2025.1521169
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The usefulness of conversational robots has been demonstrated in various fields. It is suggested that expressing subjective opinions is essential for conversational robots to stimulate users' willingness to engage in conversation. However, a challenge remains in that users often find it difficult to attribute subjective opinions to robots. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the factors influencing the attribution of subjective opinions to robots. We investigated robot and human factors that may affect subjective opinion attribution to robots. Furthermore, these factors were investigated in four different cases, adopting a combination of the robots' types and control methods, considering actual scenarios of robot usage. The survey was conducted online, and the participants completed a questionnaire after receiving instructions regarding the robot. The results revealed that the perception of the robot's sensory capabilities significantly influenced the attribution of subjective opinions in all the surveyed cases. Additionally, in the case of an autonomous small robot, there is a possibility that participants' self-perception of their judgment abilities might also impact their subjective opinion attribution to the robot. The findings highlight the importance of aligning subjective opinion utterances in conversational robots with user perceptions of the robot's sensory capabilities. They also emphasized the significance of exploring how users' self-perceptions influence their perceptions of robots. These insights provide valuable guidance for designing conversational strategies and speech generation in robots that engage in the exchange of subjective opinions with humans.
Keywords: Subjective opinion, opinion attribution, Conversational robot, teleoperation, Android, Human-robot interaction (HRI)
Received: 01 Nov 2024; Accepted: 01 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sakamoto, Uchida, Ban and Ishiguro. 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:
Yuki Sakamoto, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
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.
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