Effects of politeness and interaction context on perception and experience of HRI

Abstract

Politeness is believed to facilitate communication in human interaction, as it can minimize the potential for conflict and confrontation. Regarding the role of politeness strategies for human-robot interaction, conflicting findings are presented in the literature. Thus, we conducted a between-participants experimental study with a receptionist robot to gain a deeper understanding of how politeness on the one hand, and the type of interaction itself on the other hand, might affect and shape user experience and evaluation of HRI. Our findings suggest that the interaction context has a greater impact on participants' perception of the robot in HRI than the use - or lack - of politeness strategies. © Springer International Publishing 2013.