Tell me more: Designing HRI to encourage more trust, disclosure, and companionship

Abstract

Previous HRI research has established that trust, disclosure, and a sense of companionship lead to positive outcomes. In this study, we extend existing work by exploring behavioral approaches to increasing these three aspects of HRI. We increased the expressivity and vulnerability of a robot and measured the effects on trust, disclosure, and companionship during human-robot interaction. We engaged (N = 61) high school aged students in a 2 (vulnerability of robot: high vs. low) x 2 (expressivity of robot: high vs. low) between-subjects study where participants engaged in a short electronics learning activity with a robotic tutor. Our results show that students had more trust and feelings of companionship with a vulnerable robot, and reported disclosing more with an expressive robot. Additionally, we found that trust mediated the relationship between vulnerability and companionship. These findings suggest that vulnerability and expressivity may improve peoples' relationships with robots, but that they each have different effects.