The Impact of Intergroup Bias on Trust and Approach Behaviour Towards a Humanoid Robot

Abstract

As robots become commonplace, and for successful human-robot interaction to occur, people will need to trust them. Two experiments were conducted using the "minimal group paradigm" to explore whether social identity theory influences trust formation and impressions of a robot. In Experiment 1, participants were allocated to either a "robot" or "computer" group, and then they played a cooperative visual tracking game with an Aldebaran Nao humanoid robot as a partner. We hypothesised participants in the "robot group" would demonstrate intergroup bias by sitting closer to the robot (proxemics) and trusting the robot's suggested answers more frequently than their "computer group" counterparts. Experiment 2 used an almost identical procedure with a different set of participants; however, all participants were assigned to the "robot group" and thee different levels of anthropomorphic robot movement were manipulated. Our results suggest that intergroup bias and humanlike movement can significantly affect human-robot approach behaviour. Significant effects were found for trusting the robot's suggested answers with respect to task difficulty, but not for group membership or robot movement.

Sustainable Adaptation of New Technology — The Case of Humanoids Used for the Care of Older Adults

“…Deligianis et al discovered that people were willing to trust robots when it meant accomplishing a more difficult task with their help [41]. The study of attitudes towards humanoids in the care of older adults held by particular age groups is important because the process of technology development seems to be relatively long and its implementation on a mass scale might be seen by the current generation of the youngest citizens.…”

“…A literature review by Deligianis et al indicated that the ability to generate and maintain trust is of paramount importance in human-robot interaction [41]. Three groups of factors influence the trust formation: a human, a robot, and an environment [42].…”

“…The literature review allowed distinguishing the following factors that affect human-robot interactions: (i) human-specific features which include national or cultural identity, age, expertise and attentional load (ii) environmental factors relate to the situation or task at hand and include task load (iii) robot-specific features, such as task type, proximity to a robot, and robotic "attributes", such as the robot's appearance. Robot reliability and predictability seem to be the main performance factors that influence trust formation in human-robot interactions [41]. Torta et al proved that people perceive robots more as companions and social actors rather than tools and this is likely to steer user acceptance in a positive direction [44].…”

I–C–E Framework: Concepts for Group Dynamics Research in Human-Robot Interaction

“…Participants who were assigned into a "blue" group together with a robot showed an extent of anthropomorphic inferences about the robot and more positive evaluations compared to participants in the condition where the robot was not in the same group [46]. Similarly, intergroup bias can significantly affect how close humans are approaching an ingroup robot and how much they trust the robot's suggested answers with respect to task difficulty [19]. However, this research on perception of robot groups (online studies) and minimal group paradigms (one robot grouped with one human) has so far not been conducted in group settings that go beyond the dyad.…”

I-C-E Framework: Concepts for Group Dynamics Research in Human-Robot Interaction

“…Participants who were assigned into a blue group together with a robot showed an extent of anthropomorphic inferences about the robot and more positive evaluations compared to participants in the condition were the robot was not in the same group [21]. Similarly, intergroup bias can significantly affect how close humans are approaching an in-group robot and how much they trust the robots suggested answers with respect to task difficulty [22]. However, this research on perception of robot groups (online studies) and minimal group paradigms (one robot grouped with one human) has so far not been conducted in group settings that go beyond the dyad.…”