Int J Soc Robot (2009) 1: 261–265 DOI 10.1007/s12369-009-0016-4 ORIGINAL PAPER Gender Representation and Humanoid Robots Designed for Domestic Use Julie Carpenter · Joan M. Davis · Norah Erwin-Stewart · Tiffany R. Lee · John D. Bransford · Nancy Vye Accepted: 15 February 2009 / Published online: 19 March 2009 © Springer Science & Business Media BV 2009 Abstract Humanoid robots’ appearance and behavior pro- vide social cues about their purpose and abilities. However, little is known about how a robot’s gender representation will affect users in everyday home use scenarios. This paper presents the results of a study exploring people’s expecta- tions of humanoid robots, or androids, designed for home use. Results of this study demonstrated participants’ will- ingness to attribute human roles and tasks to an android, al- though they did not indicate an overall preference for the robot as a social actor. In addition, following the viewing of video stimulus featuring human-robot interactions, robot gender issues surfaced during open-ended interviews. Keywords Android · Design · Expectations · Gender · Human · Humanoid · Human-robot interaction · Interaction · Robot · Social · Stereotypes J. Carpenter ( ) · J.M. Davis · N. Erwin-Stewart · T.R. Lee · J.D. Bransford · N. Vye College of Education/Educational Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: julie4@u.washington.edu J.M. Davis e-mail: joand@u.washington.edu N. Erwin-Stewart e-mail: nes2@u.washington.edu T.R. Lee e-mail: tlee13@u.washington.edu J.D. Bransford e-mail: bransj@u.washington.edu N. Vye e-mail: nancyvye@u.washington.edu 1 Introduction We are entering an age where living and working with ro- bots imbued with functionality and socialness is a reality. Designing humanoid robots for home use requires under- standing how people currently feel about robots. One chal- lenge to be considered when designing robots for the home is the representation—intentional or accidental—of the ro- bot’s gender. For the purpose of this paper, the discussion of robots centers on androids, or robots with an aspect of hu- manlikeness portrayed through appearance, behavior, con- text of use, speech/voice, or a combination of these charac- teristics. Gender presentations affect interactions among humans. Central questions for robotics development and design are: How will gendered robots influence everyday use? Con- versely, how will a user’s gender affect his or her inter- actions with a gendered robot? Humans often assign gen- der to inanimate objects; for example, cars and boats are commonly female in Western culture, and dolls are typi- cally designed to be clearly male or female. Some humanoid robots are designed with obvious gender orientation, such as Repliee (Osaka University and Kokoro, Ltd.) while oth- ers are less distinct, such as Robovie (ATR Laboratories). Morphology, overall appearance, behavior, voice, gaze, ges- ture, functionality, context and cultural expectations all im- pact the user’s concept of gendered robots. While it is likely that robots with distinct gender appearance and actions will make human-robot communication more effective in some scenarios, the absence of gender in other robot designs may work better by causing less distraction for the user [8]. Potential research questions include: • What traits and characteristics do users identify as male, female or neutral in robots?