Accepting a robot request contradicting a human instruction in the function of robot attitudes and level of interdependency

Abstract

Collaboration with robots requires robot acceptance, but it can have adverse consequences when people accept a robot's request against their best intuition or another request from a superior human. In our research, we aim to explore how attitudes toward robots and the interdependency in human-robot interaction (equal versus superior position held by the human) influence their reaction to an unexpected request from a social robot, contradicting a human request. Hundred and six participants met the request from a robot not to turn it off at the end of a collaboration. The request counteracted the instruction given by the experimenter at the beginning of the experiment. Thirty-three percent of the participants complied with the robot's request and refrained from turning it off. Analyses showed that positive robot attitudes increased the likelihood of leaving the robot on. The superior position in the interaction made the rejection of the robot's unexpected request faster and slowed down the acceptance of the robot's request. According to the results from the follow-up questionnaire, discomfort, and tension caused by the unexpected request also increased the likelihood of accepting the request of the robot.

Keywords

• Human-robot interaction
• Robot attitudes
• Social robotics
• Social hierarchy