Interaction Studies - Volume 21, Issue 1, 2020

A wealth of social psychology studies suggests that moving in synchrony with another person can positively influence their likeability and prosocial behavior towards them. Recently, human-robot interaction (HRI) researchers have started to develop real-time, adaptive synchronous movement algorithms for social robots. However, little is known how socially beneficial synchronous movements with a robot actually are. We predicted that moving in synchrony with a robot would improve its likeability and participants’ social motivation towards the robot, as measured by the number of questions asked during a free interaction period. Using a between-subjects design, we implemented the synchrony manipulation via a drawing task. Contrary to predictions, we found no evidence that participants who moved in synchrony with the robot rated it as more likeable or asked it more questions. By including validated behavioral and neural measures, future studies can generate a better and more objective estimation of synchrony’s effects on rapport with social robots.

Background: The surge in the development of social robots gives rise to an increased need for systematic methods of assessing attitudes towards robots.

Aim: This study presents the development of a questionnaire for assessing attitudinal stance towards social robots: the ASOR.

Methods: The 37-item ASOR questionnaire was developed by a task-force with members from different disciplines. It was founded on theoretical considerations of how social robots could influence five different aspects of relatedness.

Results: Three hundred thirty-nine people responded to the survey. Factor analysis of the ASOR yielded a three-factor solution consisting of a total of 25 items: “ascription of mental capacities”, “ascription of socio-practical capacities”, and “ascription of socio-moral status”. This data was further triangulated with data from interviews (n = 10).

Conclusion: the ASOR allows for assessment of three distinct facets of ascription of capacities to social robots and offers a new type of assessment of attitudes towards social robots. It appeared that ASOR not only assesses ascription of capacities to social robots but it also gauged overall positive attitudes towards social robots.

Social robots and their interactions with children are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with the emergence of child-robot relationships as a likely result. However, adequate measurement instruments that tap into concepts associated with child-robot relationship formation are scarce. We aimed to develop three measures that can be used to assess children’s closeness to, trust in, and perceived social support from, a social robot. We established the validity and reliability of these measures among 87 Dutch children aged 7 to 11 years old. Because of their shortness, the measures can efficiently be applied by scholars aiming to gain insight into the general process of child-robot relationship formation and its specific sub-processes, that is, the emergence of closeness, trust, and perceived social support.

We analyze the use of Silbot – a “dementia-prevention robot” – in a regional health center in South Korea. From our on-site observation of the Silbot classes, we claim that the efficacy of the robot class relies heavily on the “strained collaboration” between the human instructor and the robot. “Strained collaboration” refers to the ways in which the instructor works with the robot, attempting to compensate for the robot’s functional limitation and social awkwardness. In bringing Silbot into the classroom setting, the instructor employs characteristic verbal tones, bodily movements, and other pedagogical tactics. The instructor even talks over the robot, downplaying its interactional capacity. We conclude that any success of such robot programs requires a deeper understanding of the spatial and human context of robot use, including the role of human operators or mediators and also that this understanding should be reflected in the design, implementation, and evaluation of robot programs.

“Integrative Social Robotics” (ISR) is a new approach or general method for generating social robotics applications in a responsible and “culturally sustainable” fashion. Currently social robotics is caught in a basic difficulty we call the “triple gridlock of description, evaluation, and regulation”. We briefly recapitulate this problem and then present the core ideas of ISR in the form of five principles that should guide the development of applications in social robotics. Characteristic of ISR is to intertwine a mixed method approach (i.e., conducting experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological research for the same envisaged application) with conceptual and axiological analysis as required in professional studies in applied ethics; moreover, ISR is value-driven and abides by the “Non-Replacement Principle”: Social robots may only do what humans should but cannot do. We briefly compare ISR to other value-sensitive or value-directed design models, with a view to the task of overcoming the triple gridlock. Finally, working from an advanced classification of pluridiscplinary research, we argue that ISR establishes a research format that can turn social robotics into a new transdiscipline.

In this paper, we discuss the development of robot use cases in an elderly care facility in the context of exploring the method of Integrative Social Robotics (ISR) when used on top of a user-centered design approach. Integrative Social Robotics is a new proposal for how to generate responsible, i.e. culturally and ethically sustainable, social robotics applications. Starting point for the discussion are the five principles that characterize an ISR approach, which are discussed in application to the three use cases for robot support in a Danish elderly care facility developed within the smooth project. The discussion by an interdisciplinary design team explores what attention to the five principles of ISR can offer for use case development. We report on the consequences of this short-time exposure to the basic ideas of ISR for use case development and discuss the value of approaching robot development from an ISR perspective.