IELTS Research Reports

Anthony Green and Roger Hawkeysuccessful social interactions. Unsurprisingly, the team found that this part of the volunteers’ brainswere active to some extent when playing all opponents. However, it was more active the more humanliketheir opponent was, with the human triggering the most activity in this region, followed by therobot with the human-like body and head. Heger says that this shows that the way a robot looks affectsthe sophistication of an interaction.Not surprisingly, though there are similarities between the way people view robots and other humanbeings, there are also differences. Daniel Levin and colleagues at Vanderbilt University showed peoplevideos of robots in action and then interviewed them. He says that people are unwilling to attributeintentions to robots, no matter how sophisticated they appear to be. Further complicating the matter,researchers have also shown that the degree to which someone socialises with and trusts a robotdepends on their gender and nationality.These uncertainties haven’t stopped some researchers from forming strong opinions. Herbert Clark, apsychologist at Stanford University in California, is sceptical about humans ever having sophisticatedrelationships with robots. “Roboticists should admit that robots will never approach human-likeinteraction levels - and the sooner they do the sooner we’ll get a realistic idea of what people canexpect from robots.” He says that robots’ lack of desire and free will is always going to limit the wayhumans view them.Whether robots can really form relationships with humans and what these can be is much disputed.Only time will really tell. However, despite the negative criticism there is one scientist with strongevidence for his view. Scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro has used a robotic twin of himself to hold classes athis university while he controls it remotely. He says that people’s reactions to his computerised doublesuggest that they are engaging with the robot emotionally. “People treat my copy completely naturallyand say hello to it as they walk past,” he says. “Robots can be people’s partners and they will be.”Non-Experienced Group: MaryItemsMatchingQuestions 1–5Look at the following list of statements based on research into robots and their emotional relationshipsto humans.Match each statement (1-5) with the correct person A-E.1 People are reluctant to think that robots can have intentions.2 People’s opinion of robots will always be limited.3 People have moved on from thinking of robots as only useful for risky and repetitivetasks.4 People react more to robots that are physically similar to humans.5 People can and will interact with humans in a completely natural way.352 www.ielts.org