Influences of Evaluation and Gaze from a Robot and Humans’ Fear of Negative Evaluation on Their Preferences of the Robot

Abstract

To investigate influences of evaluation from robots, gazes from the robots, and humans’ fear of negative evaluation (FNE) into the humans’ preferences of the robots, we conducted an experiment in which a human-sized robot is used for an advisory role, providing suggestion in foreign-language education. There were three independent variables controlled: evaluation from robot (evaluative vs. non-evaluative robot), users’ FNE (low FNE vs. high FNE), and gaze from robot (refrained gazes vs. normal gazes), and dependent variables were participants’ preferences of the robot as subjective measures and amount of utterances as an objective measure. The experimental results suggested that when the robot evaluated participants with a lower FNE, they preferred to use the robot with normal gaze behavior more than those with a higher FNE. While the effect of refrained gaze is not clear for people with higher FNE, for people with lower FNE, refrained gaze reduced their intention to participate when the robot evaluated them. Moreover, the experimental results suggested that persons having higher FNE tend to trust the robot more, and participants spoke more when the robot did not evaluate them and when it used the normal gaze. This paper discusses the implications for applications with potential evaluation capability, e.g. for healthcare and education.