Driving with Robots: Mind perception and propensity for aggressive driving

Abstract

Mind perception, or the tendency to ascribe agency (i.e., the ability to plan and act) and experience (i.e., the ability to sense and feel) to others, is an important design consideration for human-robot inter-action since an agent’s mind status affects how we interact with it and how we interpret its behavior. The current study examines whether observable behaviors of robot-piloted autonomous vehicles are interpreted differently, lead to different emotional reactions and trigger different behaviors of the ob-server as a function of the robot driver’s perceived mind status. We expect that aggressive behavior of robot drivers perceived to be high in agency would be interpreted as more intentional, and as such would lead to stronger negative reactions and retaliatory behaviors. Consistent with our expectations, the robot driver high in agency was perceived as more intentional and elicited more irritation in partici-pants.