Robot Asks Volunteers to Touch Its Buttocks in Stanford Study

Posted on April 5, 2016

A Stanford study has found that touching a robot can arouse human beings. This study did not involve an attractive human-like android but a small Nao robot that is two feet tall when standing. The Nao robot asked volunteers to touch different parts of its body including its buttocks.

The robot told study participants: "Sometimes I'll ask you to touch my body and sometimes I'll ask you just to point to my body. When I ask you to touch me please touch me with your dominant hand." When asking participants to touch a body part it would says something like "please touch my ear" or "please touch my buttocks."

While touching the robot's body part with their dominant hand as requested the volunteers placed their other hand on a sensor that measured skin conductance. The researchers say this data can indicate physiological arousal. The study found that humans were more aroused when touching the robot's buttocks - and the region where its private parts would be if it had them - then they were when touching its hands, feet or other body parts. The researchers say they found "physiological arousal was inversely related to body accessibility." There was no arousal response from simply pointing.

Jamy Li, a mechanical engineer at Stanford University in California and leader of the study, tells The Guardian, "Our work shows that robots are a new form of media that is particularly powerful. It shows that people respond to robots in a primitive, social way. Social conventions regarding touching someone else's private parts apply to a robot's body parts as well. The research has implications for both robot design and the theory of artificial systems."

Here is a video showing a robot and human interacting in the study:

ROBOTS