“After the Copa America we have the World Cup qualifiers, and we thought it best for him to be ready for the qualifiers.”
Former Real Madrid and Manchester City striker Robinho was included after a fine start to the season with Santos.
"He is much more experienced obviously, he knows his role in the national side," Dunga said.
"He has great skill and has shown that at Santos and he has more responsibility this time to pass on that experience to the younger players."
Liverpool's 22-year old Philippe Coutinho was included for his first major tournament and there were also places for Al-Ahli's Everton Ribeiro, who led Cruzeiro to first division titles in 2013 and 2014, and Diego Tardelli, who plays for Shandong Luneng in China.
Paris St Germain's defensive trio of David Luiz, Marquinhos and Thiago Silva were all included.
Dunga, who won the Copa America in Venezuela in 2007, is expecting his players to help Brazil recover prestige after a disastrous World Cup.
The captain of the 1994 World Cup-winning side took over as coach in July, days after Brazil's humiliating 7-1 defeat by Germany in the World Cup semi-final.
He has since turned their fortunes around, winning all eight games, while scoring 18 goals and conceding just two.
"What we want in the national team is players with personality, initiative, personality after all that happened in the World Cup, players looking for the essence of Brazilian football, dribbles and creativity," Dunga said.
"We must look for that incessantly, we must always look to win."
Brazil kick off their Copa America campaign against Peru on June 14 before facing Colombia and Venezuela.
They will play pre-tournament friendlies against Mexico in Sao Paulo on June 7 and face Honduras three days later in Porto Alegre.
Brazil Squad: Jefferson (Botafogo), Marcelo Grohe (Gremio), Diego Alves (Valencia) David Luiz (Paris St. Germain), Marquinhos (Paris St Germain), Thiago Silva (Paris St Germain), Miranda (Atletico Madrid), Filipe Luis (Chelsea), Danilo (Porto), Fabino (Monaco), Marcelo (Real Madrid) Luiz Gustavo (Wolfsburg), Elias (Corinthians), Casemiro (Porto), Fernandinho (Manchester City), Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool), Willian (Chelsea) Everton Ribeiro (Al-Ahli), Neymar (Barcelona), Firmino (Hoffenheim), Douglas Costa (Shakhtar), Diego Tardelli (Shandong), Robinho (Santos)
(Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Writing by Andrew Downie in Sao Paulo, editing by Ed Osmond)
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