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Rabble of Robots Effects: Number and Type of Robots Modulates Attitudes, Emotions, and Stereotypes

Published:02 March 2015Publication History

ABSTRACT

Robots are expected to become present in society in increasing numbers, yet few studies in human-robot interaction (HRI) go beyond one-to-one interaction to examine how emotions, attitudes, and stereotypes expressed toward groups of robots differ from those expressed toward individuals. Research from social psychology indicates that people interact differently with individuals than with groups. We therefore hypothesize that group effects might similarly occur when people face multiple robots. Further, group effects might vary for robots of different types. In this exploratory study, we used videos to expose participants in a between-subjects experiment to robots varying in Number (Single or Group) and Type (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, or mechanomorphic). We then measured participants' general attitudes, emotions, and stereotypes toward robots with a combination of measures from HRI (e.g., Godspeed Questionnaire, NARS) and social psychology (e.g., Big Five, Social Threat, Emotions). Results suggest that Number and Type of observed robots had an interaction effect on responses toward robots in general, leading to more positive responses for groups for some robot types, but more negative responses for others.

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            • Published in

              cover image ACM Conferences
              HRI '15: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
              March 2015
              368 pages
              ISBN:9781450328838
              DOI:10.1145/2696454

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              Publication History

              • Published: 2 March 2015

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              HRI '15 Paper Acceptance Rate43of169submissions,25%Overall Acceptance Rate242of1,000submissions,24%

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