Toward an Understanding of Trust Repair in Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Gone are the days of robots solely operating in isolation, without direct interaction with people. Rather, robots are increasingly being deployed in environments and roles that require complex social interaction with humans. The implementation of human-robot teams continues to increase as technology develops in tandem with the state of human-robot interaction (HRI) research. Trust, a major component of human interaction, is an important facet of HRI. However, the ideas of trust repair and trust violations are understudied in the HRI literature. Trust repair is the activity of rebuilding trust after one party breaks the trust of another. These trust breaks are referred to as trust violations . Just as with humans, trust violations with robots are inevitable; as a result, a clear understanding of the process of HRI trust repair must be developed in order to ensure that a human-robot team can continue to perform well after a trust violation. Previous research on human-automation trust and human-human trust can serve as starting places for exploring trust repair in HRI. Although existing models of human-automation and human-human trust are helpful, they do not account for some of the complexities of building and maintaining trust in unique relationships between humans and robots. The purpose of this article is to provide a foundation for exploring human-robot trust repair by drawing upon prior work in the human-robot, human-automation, and human-human trust literature, concluding with recommendations for advancing this body of work.

Taxonomy of Trust-Relevant Failures and Mitigation Strategies

“…The need for research on trust in artificial agents in cases of inevitable failure has been highlighted as well [5]. Baker [4] surveys trust with a focus on trust violation and repair of human-robot interaction. For a successful recovery of trust, (perceived) shared intentions have shown to be important (cf.…”

“…In ongoing studies, several actions of trust repair have been proposed, including apologies, promises, internal or external attribution, and the showing of consistent series of trustworthy actions [4,14]. In an emergency setting, where an apology right after violated trust has not recovered trust, an apology right before the next trust decision point has repaired trust.…”

“…While De Visser et al [14] stress the importance of trust repair and list possible mitigation strategies, these strategies have not been linked to different failure types before. As mentioned by Baker et al [4], models of human-automation and human-human trust are a helpful starting point, but do not account for the complexities of building and maintaining trust in HRI. A taxonomy for trust repair in HRI does not exist, but a framework for rebuilding trust in automation has been proposed by Marinaccio et al [55].…”

“…We need to systematically structure the knowledge on trust that has been gained so far; it influences our design choices, also when an interaction is unsuccessful and possible negative effects need to be mitigated. The aspects of trust repair and trust violations have been understudied in the field of HRI [4]. Trust repair can be understood as the activity of rebuilding trust after one party breaks the trust of the other, i.e.…”

Trust in Robots: Challenges and Opportunities

“…2 for an overview). We use the term "robots" to refer to embodied agents with a physical manifestation that are meant to operate in noisy, dynamic environments [8]. An automated system, on the other hand, may be a computerized process without an explicit physical form.…”