This paper presents an experimental study showing that the humanoid robot NAO, in a condition already validated with regards to its capacity to trigger situational empathy in humans, is able to stimulate the attribution of mental states towards itself. Indeed, results show that participants not only experienced empathy towards NAO, when the robot was afraid of losing its memory due to a malfunction, but they also attributed higher scores to the robot emotional intelligence in the Attribution of Mental State Questionnaire, in comparison with the users in the control condition. This result suggests a possible correlation between empathy toward the robot and humans' attribution of mental states to it.

翻译：本文通过实验研究证明，在已验证能够引发人类情境共情的条件下，人形机器人NAO能够促使人类对其产生心理状态归因。结果显示，当机器人因故障而担心失去记忆时，参与者不仅对NAO产生了共情，而且在心理状态归因问卷中对该机器人情绪智力的评分显著高于对照组。这一结果表明，人类对机器人的共情与其心理状态归因之间可能存在相关性。