Social acceptance of humanoid robots in Japan: A survey for development of the frankenstein syndorome questionnaire

This research explores the concept of “The Frankenstein Syndrome” in order to develop a psychological tool for measuring acceptance of humanoid robots, as well as expectations and anxieties toward these technologies. It also aims to explore factors that influences this acceptance, such as the effects of age and experiences with robots. The tool developed is tentatively named “The Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire”, a questionnaire to measure acceptance of humanoids in humans. A preliminary survey conducted in Japan suggested that: 1) the elder population has positive expectations for the specific applications of humanoid robots in their daily lives and view the developers of these technologies more favourably, in comparison with the younger population; 2) these expectations can be made more positive through having experiences of real humanoid robots or experiences of the robots via media information; 3) such experiences of humanoid robots do not seem to affect general anxiety toward the robots in the younger population, but they do decrease the anxiety in the elder population; 4) experiences of humanoid robots increase apprehension toward risks the robots entail in the society in the younger population, although they do not affect such apprehension in the elder population. The paper discusses about implications from the results.