He Can Read Your Mind: Perceptions of a Character-Guessing Robot

Authors

• Zachary Henkel, Mississippi State University
• Cindy L. Bethel, Mississippi State University
• John Kelly, Mississippi State University
• Alexis Jones, Mississippi State University
• Kristen Stives, Mississippi State University
• Zach Buchanan, Mississippi State University
• Deborah K. Eakin, Mississippi State University
• David C. May, Mississippi State University
• Melinda Pilkinton, Mississippi State University

ORCID

May: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8275-6773

MSU Affiliation

College of Arts and Sciences; Department of Sociology; Department of Psychology; James Worth Bagley College of Engineering; Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Creation Date

2026-06-01

Abstract

After playing a five to seven minute character guessing game with a Nao robot, children answered questions about their perceptions of the robot's abilities. Responses from interactions with 30 children, ages eight to twelve, showed that when the robot made an attempt at guessing the participant's character, rather than being stumped and unable to guess, the robot was more likely to be perceived as being able to understand the participant's feelings and able to provide advice. Regardless of their game experience, boys were more likely than girls to feel they could have discussions with the robot about things they could not talk to other people about. This article provides details associated with the implementation of a game used to guess a character the children selected; a twelve question verbally-Administered survey that examined their perceptions of the robot; quantitative and qualitative results from the study; and a discussion of the implications, limitations, and future directions of this research.

Publication Date

9-1-2017

Publication Title

2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

Publisher

IEEE

First Page

242

Last Page

247

Rights

All rights reserved. Copyright ©2017 by IEEE.

Recommended Citation

Z. Henkel et al., "He can read your mind: Perceptions of a character-guessing robot," 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Lisbon, Portugal, 2017, pp. 242-247, doi: 10.1109/ROMAN.2017.8172309.