Comment What is this really measuring? (Score 1) 327
Yeah, the obvious takeaway is compassion, but this experiment didn't have any control condition. If it were me, I'd hesitate, sure, but it could just be because I was trying to process what is going on (whether this is part of the experiment, whether the robot is malfunctioning, etc.). To truly isolate "compassionate reponse", it would have been helpful to have a condition where the robot behaved in an unexpected but less directed way, like flashing lights or emitting odd sounds. I'd bet there would be a lot of hesitation in those scenarios, too...