From “Made In” to Mukokuseki
Exploring the Visual Perception of National Identity in Robots
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22190812 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Katie Seaborn (0000-0002-7812-9096, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Haruki Kotani (0009-0008-6177-0267, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Peter Pennefather (0000-0002-2953-8977, General Dynamics (Canada)) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2573-9522 • E-ISSN: 2573-9522 |
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1145/3681782 |
| OpenAlex | W4401952371 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 45 |
People read human characteristics into the design of social robots, a visual process with socio-cultural implications. One factor may be nationality, a complex social characteristic that is linked to ethnicity, culture, and other factors of identity that can be embedded in the visual design of robots. Guided by social identity theory (SIT), we explored the notion of “mukokuseki,” a visual design characteristic defined by the absence of visual cues to national and ethnic identity in Japanese cultural exports. In a two-phase categorization study ( \(n=212\) ), American ( \(n=110\) ) and Japanese ( \(n=92\) ) participants rated a random selection of nine robot stimuli from America and Japan, plus multinational Pepper. We found evidence of made-in and two kinds of mukokuseki effects. We offer suggestions for the visual design of mukokuseki robots that may interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Our findings have implications for robots and social identity, the viability of robotic exports, and the use of robots internationally
Aesthetics · Art · Human–computer interaction · Perception · Robot · Visual arts · Communication · Computer Science · Japanese History and Culture · Psychology · Social Robot Interaction and HRI · Artificial Intelligence
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| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |