Social robots have gained immense attention over the years due to their potential use in various domains of education, medicine, manufacturing and more importantly in public settings. Extensive research has been carried out investigating various factors such as those of human perceptions of robot behaviours, robot acceptance variables and team dynamics between robots and humans. A large part of Human Robot Interaction (HRI) is utilized for behavioural change systems and to influence decision making, which can be collectively called Persuasive Robotics. While there have been numerous studies in the aforementioned area, there is an absence of work to understand the impact of number and physical size of robots on persuasive abilities and human compliance. Likewise, with mixed results concerning gender-effect within HRI, there is a gap in Persuasive Robotics to understand the effect of gender on perceived persuasion and competence of robots. This study was conducted as 2 (small vs big robot) x 2 (one vs two robot(s)) x 2 (male vs female) between-subjects experiment, spread across three stages where human participants engaged in a dialog-based interaction with a combination of the robots Pepper and NAO. The results are presented in terms of perceived persuasion and perceived competence across all stages, where comparison was made between a small vs tall robot and one vs two robot(s) between males and females. The results revealed that a single robot is better at persuading humans and there was no impact of robot size on persuasion and compliance. Additionally, males perceived the robots more persuasive and competent than females. Furthermore, a novel finding emerged from the study which suggests humans tend to assign gender-neutral robots with attributes of the opposite gender. The implications of the study showcase the purposeful use of robots in terms of marketing or brand promotion that may be used by organizations. The study findings further encourage better strategies of natural robot-robot & human-robot interactions allowing humans and robots to understand each other better as social partners.
Date of Award | 2023 |
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Original language | English |
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- human-robot interaction
- robots
- social aspects
Two vs one : robot-robot interactions in public spaces
Abeer, A. (Author). 2023
Western Sydney University thesis: Master's thesis