Humanoid Robots – Artificial. Human-like. Credible? Empirical Comparisons of Source Credibility Attributions Between Humans, Humanoid Robots, and Non-human-like Devices

Abstract

Source credibility is known as an important prerequisite to ensure effective communication (Pornpitakpan, 2004). Nowadays not only humans but also technological devices such as humanoid robots can communicate with people and can likewise be rated credible or not as reported by Fogg and Tseng (1999). While research related to the machine heuristic suggests that machines are rated more credible than humans (Sundar, 2008), an opposite effect in favor of humans’ information is supposed to occur when algorithmically produced information is wrong (Dietvorst, Simmons, and Massey, 2015). However, humanoid robots may be attributed more in line with humans because of their anthropomorphically embodied exterior compared to non-human-like technological devices. To examine these differences in credibility attributions a 3 (source-type) x 2 (information’s correctness) online experiment was conducted in which 338 participants were asked to either rate a human’s, humanoid robot’s, or non-human-like device’s credibility based on either correct or false communicated information. This between-subjects approach revealed that humans were rated more credible than social robots and smart speakers in terms of trustworthiness and goodwill. Additionally, results show that people’s attributions of theory of mind abilities were lower for robots and smart speakers on the one side and higher for humans on the other side and in part influence the attribution of credibility next to people’s reliance on technology, attributed anthropomorphism, and morality. Furthermore, no main or moderation effect of the information’s correctness was found. In sum, these insights offer hints for a human superiority effect and present relevant insights into the process of attributing credibility to humanoid robots.

Increased morality through social communication or decision situation worsens the acceptance of robo-advisors

“…This contradicts the research claiming that anthropomorphism improves robot acceptance (Abdi et al, 2022;Biermann et al, 2021;Roesler et al, 2021;Ochmann et al, 2020;Hoffmann et al, 2020;Castelo et al, 2019;Hertz and Wiese, 2018;Ludewig, 2016;R. H. Kim et al, 2014;Fink, 2012) and therefore rather supports studies in which anthropomorphic interaction design alone cannot reduce algorithm aversion (Finkel and Krämer, 2022) nor lead to higher acceptance (Kulms and Kopp, 2019;Goudey and Bonnin, 2016).…”

“…On the one hand, subjects associate robot explanations with numbers as algorithmic thought processes and reward them with unjustifiably high trust (Ehsan et al, 2021) or do not recognize a robot's biased behavior because they judge algorithms to be objective (Hitron et al, 2022). On the other hand, subjects rate robots as less trustworthy and less competent than humans (Finkel and Krämer, 2022) and lower conformity effects in robot majorities have been found than in human majorities (Masjutin et al, 2022;Hertz and Wiese, 2018;Brandstetter et al, 2014).…”

“…Furthermore, we assessed the acceptance of a robot as an advisor in moral decision-making situations primarily by the acceptance or rejection of the robot's recommendation. Meanwhile, studies that showed acceptance improvements due to increased anthropomorphism assessed the robot's acceptance by how credible a robot is (Finkel and Krämer, 2022) or what attitudes (Biermann et al, 2021) or donation motivations are triggered by a robot (R. H. Kim et al, 2014). Different measures of acceptability judgment may not be well comparable to each other.…”

The robotic mentalist – On the influences of robots’ mentalizing abilities and external manipulative intent on people’s credibility attributions

“…Banks (2021) results demonstrate that implicit mentalizing processes might be similar between robots and humans and that most differences in mentalizing originate from explicit attempts of mind ascription. If the robot's mentalizing abilities are not salient enough, previous research supports the assumption that users' explicit attribution of ToM-abilities is lower for robots compared to human interaction partners (Banks, 2020;Thellman et al, 2020;Finkel and Krämer, 2022). This observation is similar to the basic assumptions of media equation theory which postulates social but unaware reaction patterns to media entities if they make use of social cues (e.g., natural language use, interactivity, taking social roles) (Reeves and Nass, 1996;Nass and Moon, 2000).…”

Credibility and trust of information privacy at the workplace in Slovakia. The use of intuition

“…It is commonly accepted that source credibility is crucial for any form of communication to be successful (Wang et al , 2023). Humanoid robots and other technical equipment may now communicate with humans and be given credibility ratings (Finkel and Krämer, 2022), as described by Fogg and Tseng (1999) two decades ago. There have been some empirical studies on how individual differences affect credibility decision-making, e.g.…”