Introducing Psychology Strategies to Increase Engagement on Social Robots

Abstract

One of the challenges facing the field of social robotics research is to achieve useful robots that users trust and regularly employ in their daily lives. That is, robots with a high degree of engagement with their users. To date, few social bots have achieved massive sales success coupled with a satisfactory and continuous user experience over time by the users who interact with them. This may be partly due to the lack of maturity of certain technologies involved in developing these social robots, but undoubtedly a key factor —and one that is being taken into account very little— is the psychological factor when designing and developing these technological devices. There are several psychological techniques that, when correctly applied and combined, can significantly increase the engagement in the interaction between humans and robots. In this paper, we will unravel what these techniques are and how we can apply them in this field of research.