“It almost wanted to hurt someone”: The impact of intentional creepiness on user perceptions

Abstract

The intentional design of robots to evoke creepiness provides a unique lens for studying human perception and willingness to engage. To understand user perceptions and acceptance of robots we developed a robot prototype designed with targeted facial, morphological, and movement features that may be perceived as "creepy". Using the Human-Robot Interaction Evaluation Scale (HRIES) we found that disturbance was moderate towards our intentionally creepy robot with significant participant variation. Furthermore, qualitative results confirmed this polarity, with descriptions ranging from "angry and unfriendly" to "cool and cute". This variability demonstrates that "creepiness" is more subjective than initially anticipated and highlights a key research gap in academic literature with the need for measurement tools which capture negative perceptions in HRI.