THRIVE: Trust in Human-Robot Interaction (Pilot Experiment)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
THRIVE: Trust in Human-Robot Interaction Via Embodiment (Pilot Experiment)
IRAS ID
145736
Contact name
Angelo Cangelosi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
US DoD - Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Research summary
The THRIVE project aims at the investigation of embodiment and socio-cognitive mechanisms in the development of trust between humans and robots involved in interactions and joint tasks. The work will be based on the strategic coupling of developmental robotics modeling and empirical Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) experiments to evaluate the robot’s embodiment properties (e.g. voice, emotional, humanoid appearance) and sociocultural mechanisms (e.g. joint attention, joint action, group assimilation) in establishing trust.
The first, pilot experiment in THRIVE focuses on a joint task (price judgement) between the human participant and the iCub humanoid robot (Metta et al. 2008; icub.org) or mobile robot Scitos G5 (metralab.com). The price judgment task of Rau et al. (2009) will be used. Participants have to select the price range for a product from two price options. After the robot’s comment on the participant’s initial selection (either positively or negatively), the participant has the opportunity to change his/her decision and make a final price selection. This task was adapted from Rau et al., with the difference that in the THRIVE experiments real objects will be used (instead of picture of objects on a computer screen, as in Rau et al.)The hypothesis is that the human participants will trust more the robot that engages in joint social interaction through synchronised gaze (vs random or fixed gaze). As for the robot’s appearance (humanoid or mobile) we expect the humanoid platforms iCub to be preferred.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SW/1024
Date of REC Opinion
11 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion