The perception of a robot partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment to human-robot interaction

Abstract

Previous research has shown that the perception that one’s partner is investing effort in a joint action can generate a sense of commitment, leading participants to persist longer despite increasing boredom. The current research extends this finding to human-robot interaction. We implemented a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round, and operationalized commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Participants were informed that they would be linked via internet with their partner, a humanoid robot. Our results reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be cues of their robot partner’s effortful contribution to the joint action. This provides evidence that the perception of a robot partner’s effort can elicit a sense of commitment to human-robot interaction.

An adaptive robot teacher boosts a human partner’s learning performance in joint action

“…In the context of human-human interaction, several studies provide support for this general hypothesis i.e., that the perception of a partner's effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased effort, persistence and performance on boring and effortful tasks ( [10], [11], [12]). Building on this, in [13] the authors have recently found evidence that the perception of a robot partner's apparent investment of cognitive effort boosted people's persistence on a boring task which they performed together with a robot.…”

Social Robots on a Global Stage: Establishing a Role for Culture During Human–Robot Interaction

“…Recent evidence shows that a number of elements influence our actions, cognition and emotions during HRIs. These include the motivational factors underpinning an interaction with a robot, such as a sense of commitment to a robot by the user [110], or our perception of robots making an effort during interaction [111]. An important avenue for future research will be to explore more deeply whether elements that drive our motivation to engage with a robot are related to our cognitive styles and culturally derived preferences.…”

Feeling committed to a robot: why, what, when and how?

“…This example generalizes to other contexts where one's losing focus on a joint action owing to overestimation of a robot's capabilities may entail a high risk. A human agent's lack of commitment to a joint task in a factory with a robot partner might lead that human to become uninterested or to lose focus [38]. In certain industrial contexts, this holds risks relating to potential injury to the person or damage to the robot, especially because workers are increasingly working in closer contact with their robot partners [39,40].…”

“…For cognitive effort, for instance, one might feasibly take some measure of an interactor's cognitive load over the course of a task. This is because [28,29,38] cognitive effort investment [29,38] directly sustains an agent's motivation to contribute to a joint action retail shops autopilot systems [37] increases predictability of an increase in one's cognitive effort should presuppose an increase in cognitive load. This presents a complication because one of the principal ways in which cognitive load is measured is through pupillometry [71][72][73][74], which is a difficult variable to measure in conditions that are not very tightly controlled.…”

“…One answer to this question is provided in [28,38]. In one recent study [28], participants played a joint version of the classic snake game where over 20 rounds they were to collect as many apples as possible with a partner.…”