Questionnaire-Based Research on Opinions of Visitors for Communication Robots at an Exhibition in Japan

This paper reports the results of questionnaire–based research conducted at an exhibition of interactive humanoid robots that was held in the Osaka Science Museum, Japan. The aim of this exhibition was to investigate the feasibility of communication robots connected to a ubiquitous sensor network, under the assumption that these robots will be practically used in daily life in the not–so–distant future. More than ninety thousand people visited the exhibition. An questionnaire was administrated to the visitors to explore their opinions of the robots. Statistical analysis was done on the data of 2,301 respondents. It was found that the visitors’ opinions varied according to age; younger visitors did not necessarily like the robots more than elder visitors; positive evaluation of the robots did not necessarily conflict with negative evaluations such as anxiety; there was no gender difference; and there was almost no correlation between the opinions and the length of time spent near the robots.