Exploratory analysis of Sony AIBO users

It is important to understand how the cultural background, the age and the gender influence the expectations towards social robots. Although past works studied the user adaptation for some months, the users with multiple years of ownership (heavy users) were not subjects of any experiment to compare these criteria over the years. This exploratory research examines the owners of the discontinued Sony AIBO because these robots have not been abandoned by some enthusiastic users and they are still resold on the secondhand market. 78 Sony AIBO owners were recruited online and their quantitative data were analyzed by four independent variables (age, gender, culture, and length of ownership), user contribution and model preference points of view. The results revealed the motives to own these robots for years and how the heavy users perceived their social robots after a long period in the robot acceptance phase.