What comes to mind when people are asked questions about robots?

Scientists and practitioners often seek to understand people’s attitudes towards new technologies, such as robots. Attitude Bepresentation Theory suggests that what people think and feel about a category is likely to depend on the specific representation that comes to mind when asked questions about that category. The aim of this research was therefore to explore what members of the general public think about when asked questions about robots. A short survey was conducted with 33 members of the general public in Sheffield. It was found that participants most frequently associated the word robot with descriptive words such as “metallic” and “artificial”. Approximately half of the participants mentioned fictional robots, suggesting that people’s attitudes toward robots may not be grounded in reality. Besearch into people’s attitudes toward robots therefore needs to (i) consider what representations people are likely to base their attitudes on and (ii) find ways to help them to ground these representations in the reality of the technologies.