London (PTI): Scientists in Britain have created an emotional robot which appears to respond to being cuddled or scared. The Heart Robot, developed by scientists at the University of the West of England in Bristol, was aimed to explore human reaction to machine that give emotional feedbacks.

Heart Robot - in reality half robot and half puppet - is the star attraction of the 'Emotibots' exhibition at London's Science Museum. With a beating heart, a breathing belly, and sensors that respond to movement, noise and touch, the robot reacts emotionally to being scared or cuddled. He flinches in apparent alarm when he is shouted at.

"Heart Robot looks like a cross between ET and Gollum and is about the size of a small child," said Holly Cave, who helped organise the Emotibots event at the Science Museum where the machine was unveiled. "He's half robot, half puppet. You move him around by hand, but he has innate responses that appear emotional," he was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper on wednesday. He said different children react to him very differently.

"They either want to hug and cuddle him, and look after him like a doll or baby, or they just want to scare him," said Cave.

The exhibition also features a six-legged metallic spidery robot called Hexapod, who records people watching him and plays back video on a plasma screen. "How humans and robots might interact in the future is something that raises lots of interesting ethical and moral questions," said Cave.