Gracefully mitigating breakdowns in robotic services

Abstract

-Robots that operate in the real world will make mistakes. Thus, those who design and build systems will need to understand how best to provide ways for robots to mitigate those mistakes. Building on diverse research literatures, we consider how to mitigate breakdowns in services provided by robots. Expectancy-setting strategies forewarn people of a robot's limitations so people will expect mistakes. Recovery strategies, including apologies, compensation, and options for the user, aim to reduce the negative consequence of breakdowns. We tested these strategies in an online scenario study with 317 participants. A breakdown in robotic service had severe impact on evaluations of the service and the robot, but forewarning and recovery strategies reduced the negative impact of the breakdown. People's orientation toward services influenced which recovery strategy worked best. Those with a relational orientation responded best to an apology; those with a utilitarian orientation responded best to compensation. We discuss robotic service design to mitigate service problems.

Effects of Robot Motion on Human-Robot Collaboration

“…Finally, the service orientation attitude scale was adapted from [13], measuring whether participants have a relational or utilitarian orientation toward a food service provider. The questions were modified to refer to food preparation.…”

Perceived robot capability

“…This was also the case if the robot used both functional and conversational speech. This interpretation follows [36], which found that when robots utilize warnings or mitigation strategies, such as apologizing, people are more forgiving if a breakdown occurs. Perceived Capability Findings.…”

“…Although these are effective, speech allows a larger range of information to be communicated and can be helpful in appropriately setting users' expectations [36]. Fig.5 shows an example of functional speech.…”

Robot humor: How self-irony and Schadenfreude influence people's rating of robot likability

“…Devillers et al state that humor can be used as a means to establish social relationships and, even more targeted, to recover from faulty situations [7]. Lee et al found a robot showing mitigation strategies for error recovery (i.e., apology or offer compensation) to create a better impression within a human interaction partner than a robot without recovery behavior [8]. The authors of this study claim that tailored recovery strategies would be even more beneficial as they include the individuals' personal preferences and expectations.…”