A ‘friendly robot’ called ERWIN
will be used to help scientists understand how more realistic long-term
relationships might be developed between humans and androids. ERWIN (Emotional
Robot with Intelligent Network) is the brainchild of Dr John Murray, from the
School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, UK.
Researchers try to find out how
some of the human-like thought biases in robot characteristics affect the
human-robot relationship. It is hoped the research will not only help
scientists to understand and develop better but that it could also help to
inform how relationships are formed by
children with autism, Asperger syndrome or attachment disorder.
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