The robot eyes don't have it. The presence of eyes on collaborative robots yields marginally higher user trust but lower performance
Artur Pilacinski,
Ana Pinto,
Soraia Oliveira,
Eduardo Araújo,
Carla Carvalho,
Paula Alexandra Silva,
Ricardo Matias,
Paulo Menezes,
Sonia Sousa
Affiliations
Artur Pilacinski
Medical Faculty, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany; CINEICC - Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Corresponding author. Chair for Neurotechnology, Universitätsstraße 142, 6. OG, Bochum, Germany.
Ana Pinto
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; CeBER – Centre for Business and Economics Research, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Soraia Oliveira
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Eduardo Araújo
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Carla Carvalho
CINEICC - Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Paula Alexandra Silva
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; CISUC - Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Ricardo Matias
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Paulo Menezes
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Sonia Sousa
University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal; School of Digital Technologies, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia
Eye gaze is a prominent feature of human social lives, but little is known on whether fitting eyes on machines makes humans trust them more. In this study we compared subjective and objective markers of human trust when collaborating with eyed and non-eyed robots of the same type. We used virtual reality scenes in which we manipulated distance and the presence of eyes on a robot's display during simple collaboration scenes. We found that while collaboration with eyed cobots resulted in slightly higher subjective trust ratings, the objective markers such as pupil size and task completion time indicated it was in fact less comfortable to collaborate with eyed robots. These findings are in line with recent suggestions that anthropomorphism may be actually a detrimental feature of collaborative robots. These findings also show the complex relationship between human objective and subjective markers of trust when collaborating with artificial agents.
