Anthropomorphic Design for Everyday Objects

Eye contact is important during social interactions. It is known as one of the most compelling social signals which can boost people's physiological arousal. However, people tend to feel that they are making eye contacts with other people rather than with objects. In this paper, our research is motivated to explore the possibility of gaze communication between a person and an inanimate object. By anthropomorphizing everyday objects, we try to create social interactions and a sense of emotional bond between people and inanimate objects, inspired by anthropomorphic design. Based on the eye-tracking technology, we implement a coffee machine system with two small responsive displays which called "artificial eyes". In the system, when a person looks at the artificial eyes, they will look back and try to establish the eye contact with that person. When a person stares at the artificial eyes for a while, indicating the needs of using the coffee machine, the artificial eyes will look down and pour the coffee out automatically. Finally, we present the experimental plan to compare the user's perceptions between the interactive-gaze condition and the random-gaze condition of the artificial eyes.