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Researchers have heavily debated the definition and role of trust in human behavior over the past few decades. As robots begin to be used more often, particularly in international military applications, understanding human-robot trust becomes increasingly important. The current study aims to investigate trust differences in robotic peacekeepers between Americans living in the United States, China, and Japan using a simulated environment. We predicted that trust in robots would differ as a function of culture. Results showed that Americans residing in Japan were significantly more trusting than Americans in the United States or China overall. Further, Americans living in America trusted robotic peacekeepers significantly more than Americans residing in China. This suggests that people who adopt a certain trust framework are those who have chosen to live abroad, but more research is needed to understand the differences between resident and expatriate Americans.

Inattentional blindness is a failure to notice an unexpected event when attention is directed elsewhere. The current study examined participants’ awareness of an unexpected object that maintained luminance contrast, switched the luminance once, or repetitively flashed. One hundred twenty participants performed a dynamic tracking task on a computer monitor for which they were instructed to count the number of movement deflections of an attended set of objects while ignoring other objects. On the critical trial, an unexpected cross that did not change its luminance (control condition), switched its luminance once (switch condition), or repetitively flashed (flash condition) traveled across the stimulus display. Participants noticed the unexpected cross more frequently when the luminance feature matched their attention set than when it did not match. Unexpectedly, however, a proportion of the participants who noticed the cross in the switch and flash conditions were statistically comparable. The results suggest that an unexpected object with even a single luminance change can break inattentional blindness in a multi-object tracking task.

Military personnel have focused their efforts on delegating dangerous duties to robots and other automated devices. Such duties include complex tasks such as peacekeeping. The current study explores the use of robotic peacekeepers across different cultures wielding non-lethal weapons (NLWs) in a virtual environment. We predicted that weapon acceptability would differ as a function of culture, compliance rate, and citizenship (native vs. expatriate). Results showed that participants complied significantly more often when the robotic peacekeeper requested an item that was not a weapon than when the item itself was a weapon. Further, Chinese and Americans reported highest weapons approval. Implications for future research are discussed.