Creativity in Measuring Trust in Human-Robot Interaction Using Interactive Dialogs

Abstract

The measurement of human trust in humanoid robots in human-robot interaction requires novel approaches that can predict trust effectively. We present a method that mapped subjective measures (i.e. general trust, psychological) to objective measures (i.e. physiological) to predict trust. We designed interactive dialogs that represent real world service scenarios of Business, Disaster, and Healthcare. The dialogs embedded fifteen trust attributes of Ability, Benevolence and Integrity (ABI) in the communication dialogs. The ABI measures were mapped to physiological measures of facial expressions, voiced speech and camera-based heart rate. Forty-eight subjects comprising 24 males and 24 females aged between 18 to 36 years participated in the experiment. Half of the subjects were Malays and half were Chinese. Three humanoid robots represented full bodied, partial bodied and virtual agents. The experimental design was a within-subjects design. Each subject was tested on all robots in all scenarios. Subjects scored trust on an online scale that ranged from 0 to 7 points. The subjective data was analyzed using Univariate and Oneway MANOVA. The results found the humanoids to be trustworthy in different service tasks. The attributes of ‘Integrity’ and ‘Ability’ trust components are important in Business and Disaster scenarios. The estimation of trust was about 83% accurate when using this creative approach. In conclusion, humanoid robots can interact with humans using dialogs that are representative of real world communication.