Not that uncanny after all? An ethnographic study on android robots perception of older adults in Germany and Japan

Intercultural studies are scarce but yet insightful to better understand reactions of older adults to human-like Android robot behavior. They help to see which reactions of participants are universal and which are country specific. Research with android robots and older adults has many results that are based on online research with pictures or on research that has been carried out in labs in one country. Within a Japanese-European research project, we had the rare occasion to work with an android robot in both countries and compare the results. We collected data from 19 participants that were invited in a Living Lab at two universities in Japan and Germany. The data contains interviews, videos and questionnaires and was analyzed with a mixed method approach. Results indicate that the android robots of this study are not in the valley of the uncanny valley theory. We could observe that the older adults and stakeholders from both countries were open to talk to the robot, some even about private topics, while others preferred to use the robot to retrieve information. German participants wished for more gestures, while Japanese participants were keen on the relatively little number of gestures. With this work we contribute to a broader understanding on how older adults perceive android robots and could show that an android robot with its human-like appearance is not seen as uncanny.