In new research, scientists set up an experiment where people played a game against a robot. If the robot looked up at the human players during the session, it ended up affecting the participants' behavior and strategy in the game – a change that could be discerned in measurements of their neural activity recorded by electroencephalography (EEG) during the experiment. In the experiment, 40 participants sat across from an iCub humanoid robot, competing in a game of 'Chicken' on a horizontal computer screen, in which two simulated cars rushed head-on towards one another.
Just before the moment of impact, the game would pause, and the participants were asked to look up at the robot – which would either meet their gaze, or look away. During this instant, the participants had to decide whether to let their cars run ahead, or to deviate to the side. The results of the experiment showed that the robot's return gaze didn't influence the choices individual human players made, but it did cause their response time to slightly increase, with participants generally responding faster in the game when the iCub averted its eyes.
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