Humans feel guilty when robots cry
Radboud University Nijmegen researcher Marieke Wieringa recently carried out a series of experiments looking at how people reacted when asked to violently shake a test robot. In some cases, participants would shake the robot and nothing would happen. Other times, the robot would emit a pitiful crying sound from a pair of small speakers or enlarge its “eyes” to convey sadness. The researchers say they were more likely to feel guilty when the robot gave the emotion-like responses. In another experiment, the participants were given the option of either performing a boring task or giving the robot a solid shake. Participants were more than willing to shake the robot when it was unresponsive. When it cried out, however, participants opted to go ahead and complete the task instead.