Robot Authority in Human-Robot Teaming: Effects of Human-Likeness and Physical Embodiment on Compliance

Abstract

The anticipated social capabilities of robots may allow them to serve in authority roles as part of human-machine teams. To date, it is unclear if, and to what extent, human team members will comply with requests from their robotic teammates, and how such compliance compares to requests from human teammates. This research examined how the human-likeness and physical embodiment of a robot affect compliance to a robot's request to perseverate utilizing a novel task paradigm. Across a set of two studies, participants performed a visual search task while receiving ambiguous performance feedback. Compliance was evaluated when the participant requested to stop the task and the coach urged the participant to keep practicing multiple times. In the first study, the coach was either physically co-located with the participant or located remotely via a live-video. Coach type varied in human-likeness and included either a real human (confederate), a Nao robot, or a modified Roomba robot. The second study expanded on the first by including a Baxter robot as a coach and replicated the findings in a different sample population with a strict chain of command culture. Results from both studies showed that participants comply with the requests of a robot for up to 11 min. Compliance is less than to a human and embodiment and human-likeness on had weak effects on compliance.

A Meta-Analysis on Remote HRI and In-Person HRI: What Is a Socially Assistive Robot to Do?

“…In [ 53 ], the Roomba and NAO robots were used as coaches in a visual search task. The task for the adult participants was to identify certain types of targets from the synthetic aperture radar images on a computer, while receiving ambiguous feedback from the robot instructor.…”

“…Compared to remote human–human interaction (HHI), the use of remote HRI can potentially help to alleviate staff shortages [ 37 , 38 , 39 ] and high healthcare costs [ 40 , 41 , 42 ], as well as caregiver burnout and workload [ 43 , 44 , 45 ] by providing needed interventions [ 26 , 27 ], monitoring [ 46 ], and disease management [ 47 ], especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing in-person and remote comparison studies have investigated the feasibility of these types of HRI on individual scenarios and tasks, e.g., [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 46 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]. However, no consensus on the specific differences between in-person HRI and remote HRI have been determined, as contradictory results have been reported.…”

Advancing Human-Robot Teams: A Framework for Understanding Swift Trust

“…As current events shift global affairs, tasks become increasingly complex, and technology becomes more sophisticated, there is a need for humans and robots to work as a team. A human-robot (HR) team is when a robotic device interacts with and operates alongside a human to accomplish a specific task (Haring et al, 2021). For robots to be considered successful teammates, people must be willing to trust (i.e., be willing to accept vulnerability and risk based on positive expectations; Rousseau et al, 1998) adhere to machinegenerated information, and appropriately rely on the machine members of their team (Freedy et al, 2007;Ososky et al, 2013).…”

Robotic Psychology: A PRISMA Systematic Review on Social-Robot-Based Interventions in Psychological Domains

“…The technological advancements seen in recent years and the new paradigm in robotic sciences emphasizing the "human-oriented" values of engineering design led researchers to equip some of these artificial entities with a physical embodiment [2] and, therefore, let them interact in a more typically human fashion (e.g., proxemics, kinesics, tactile and multisensory stimulation) [3]. Personal service robots' growth allowed them to be robust enough to be deployed in a plethora of settings, including healthcare, where they have been particularly beneficial [4][5][6].…”