Investigating cooperation with robotic peers

We explored how people establish cooperation with robotic peers, by giving participants the chance to choose whether to cooperate or not with a more/less selfish robot, as well as a more or less interactive, in a more or less critical environment. We measured the participants' tendency to cooperate with the robot as well as their perception of anthropomorphism, trust and credibility through questionnaires. We found that cooperation in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) follows the same rule of Human-Human Interaction (HHI), participants rewarded cooperation with cooperation, and punished selfishness with selfishness. We also discovered two specific robotic profiles capable of increasing cooperation, related to the payoff. A mute and non-interactive robot is preferred with a high payoff, while participants preferred a more human-behaving robot in conditions of low payoff. Taken together, these results suggest that proper cooperation in HRI is possible but is related to the complexity of the task.

本研究探讨了人类与机器人同伴建立合作关系的机制。实验中，我们赋予被试选择是否与自私程度不同、交互性各异的机器人同伴开展合作的权利，并将实验设置于严苛程度有别的环境中。本研究通过问卷量表测量了被试与机器人的合作倾向，以及其对机器人的拟人化（anthropomorphism）感知、信任度与可信度评价。研究发现，人机交互（Human-Robot Interaction, HRI）中的合作遵循与人际交互（Human-Human Interaction, HHI）一致的法则：被试会以合作回应合作，以自私行为惩罚自私行为。本研究还发现了两种与收益（payoff）相关的特定机器人特征画像，可有效提升合作意愿。当收益较高时，被试更倾向于选择沉默且无交互的机器人；而当收益较低时，被试则更偏好具有更强类人行为表现的机器人。综合以上结果可知，人机交互中实现合理合作具备可行性，但该合作与任务的复杂程度密切相关。