Abstract
While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots operating in unstructured environments are often challenged by frequent failures. Despite this, robots have not yet reached a level of design that allows effective management of faulty or unexpected behavior by untrained users. To understand why this may be the case, an in-depth literature review was done to explore when people perceive and resolve robot failures, how robots communicate failure, how failures influence people's perceptions and feelings toward robots, and how these effects can be mitigated. Fifty-two studies were identified relating to communicating failures and their causes, the influence of failures on human-robot interaction (HRI), and mitigating failures. Since little research has been done on these topics within the HRI community, insights from the fields of human computer interaction (HCI), human factors engineering, cognitive engineering and experimental psychology are presented and discussed. Based on the literature, we developed a model of information processing for robotic failures (Robot Failure Human Information Processing, RF-HIP), that guides the discussion of our findings. The model describes the way people perceive, process, and act on failures in human robot interaction. The model includes three main parts: (1) communicating failures, (2) perception and comprehension of failures, and (3) solving failures. Each part contains several stages, all influenced by contextual considerations and mitigation strategies. Several gaps in the literature have become evident as a result of this evaluation. More focus has been given to technical failures than interaction failures. Few studies focused on human errors, on communicating failures, or the cognitive, psychological, and social determinants that impact the design of mitigation strategies. By providing the stages of human information processing, RF-HIP can be used as a tool to promote the development of user-centered failure-handling strategies for HRIs.
Highlights
While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots are often challenged by frequent failures
We developed a model of information processing for robotic failures that guides the discussion of our findings
After reviewing the cognitive considerations that influence people’s ability to detect and solve robot failures, as well as the current literature in failure handling in human-robot interaction (HRI), we developed an information processing model called the Robot Failure Human Information Processing (RF-HIP) Model, modeled after Communication-Human Information Processing (C-HIP) (Wogalter, 2006a), to describe the way people perceive, process, and act on failures in human robot interactions (Figure 3)
Summary
While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots are often challenged by frequent failures. Following Steinbauer’s categorization (Steinbauer, 2013), interaction failures refer to problems that arise from uncertainties in the interaction with the environment, other agents, and humans These include social norm violations and various types of human errors as noted in Reason (1990). Papers were classified into three main topics: (a) communicating failures and their causes, i.e., how should a robot communicate to its user and bystanders that an error has occurred; (b) the influence of failures on HRI, i.e., how do failures influence user perceptions of the robot and user behavior; and (c) mitigating failures, i.e., approaches on how to mitigate the negative effects of failure on HRIs. The following sections provide an overview of methodologies used in the literature, including the types of errors and symptoms studied, evaluation methods and metrics, the types of robotic systems used, and experimental environments. 2017; Kwon et al, 2018), running into obstacles (e.g., Brooks et al, 2016), performing the wrong action (e.g., Kim et al, 2009; Lee et al, 2010; Desai et al, 2012, 2013; Yasuda and Matsumoto, 2013; Kaniarasu and Steinfeld, 2014; Gehle et al, 2015; Mubin and Bartneck, 2015; Salem et al, 2015; Brooks et al, 2016; Hayes et al, 2016; Robinette et al, 2016; Mirnig et al, 2017; Sarkar et al, 2017; van der Woerdt and Haselager, 2017), performing the right action incorrectly or incompletely (e.g., Takayama et al, 2011; Shiomi et al, 2013; Cha et al, 2015; Hamacher, 2015; Brooks et al, 2016; Hamacher et al, 2016; Adubor et al, 2017; Sarkar et al, 2017; van der Woerdt and Haselager, 2017; Kwon et al, 2018), producing no action or speech (irresponsiveness) (e.g., Gieselmann, 2006; Lohan et al, 2014; Bajones et al, 2016; Robinette et al, 2016; Lucas et al, 2017, 2018), timing speech improperly (e.g., Mirnig et al, 2017), failing to produce speech (e.g., Gieselmann and Ostendorf, 2007; Mirnig et al, 2017), producing inappropriate speech or erroneous instruction (e.g., Gieselmann, 2006; Gieselmann and Ostendorf, 2007; Short et al, 2010; Gehle et al, 2015; Gompei and Umemuro, 2015; Lucas et al, 2017, 2018; Mirnig et al, 2017; Sarkar et al, 2017), repeating statements or body movements (e.g., Gieselmann and Ostendorf, 2007; Spexard et al, 2008; Lucas et al, 2017; Kwon et al, 2018), producing unexpected or erratic behavior (e.g., Kim and Hinds, 2006; Spexard et al, 2008; Short et al, 2010; Desai et al, 2012; Salem et al, 2013, 2015; Lemaignan et al, 2015; Robinette et al, 2016; van der Woerdt and Haselager, 2017), making knowledge-based mistakes (e.g., Groom et al, 2010; Short et al, 2010; Kahn et al, 2012; Rosenthal et al, 2012; Salem et al, 2015; Hayes et al, 2016; Ragni et al, 2016; Engelhardt and Hansson, 2017; Law et al, 2017), overtly stating there is a problem (e.g., Spexard et al, 2008; Bajones et al, 2016; Lucas et al, 2018), asking for help (e.g., Ross et al, 2004; Hüttenrauch and Severinson-Eklundh, 2006; Spexard et al, 2008; Rosenthal et al, 2012; Yasuda and Matsumoto, 2013; Knepper et al, 2015; Bajones et al, 2016; Srinivasan and Takayama, 2016), producing body language associated with failure (e.g., Takayama et al, 2011), and questioning for additional information (e.g., Gieselmann, 2006; Lucas et al, 2018)
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