Abstract
Though existing social robots can already be used in a variety of applications, there are technical limitations to their use, especially outside the laboratory, and humans do not fully trust or recognize them. Considering these problems, a method to make humans accept a robot’s suggestion more easily was investigated. An idea called “sequential persuasion” was developed to use multiple robots distant from each other to deliver small messages, rather than a single robot for the entire interaction. To experimentally validate this concept, a field experiment was performed on a university campus. Two bottles of hand sanitizer were placed in one of the entrances to a building, and their usage was observed under three different conditions: no robot, one robot, and three robots. As people passed through the entrance corridor, the robots promoted the usage of the hand sanitizers. After several days of testing, it was found that the usage increased progressively from no robot to one robot to three robots, indicating that the number of robots influenced the behavior of the humans.
Highlights
Several science fiction works have portrayed a society in which humans and robots coexist
Studies on the very nature of human–robot interactions [3], methodologies [4], metrics [5], and psychology [6] are examples of efforts to build the foundation of the interface between humans and robots
To test whether the concept was valid, a field experiment was proposed. The objective of this experiment was to observe whether changing only the number of robots and not changing the message would result in a change in behavior, namely the usage of hand sanitizer by passers-by
Summary
Several science fiction works have portrayed a society in which humans and robots coexist. Studies on the very nature of human–robot interactions [3], methodologies [4], metrics [5], and psychology [6] are examples of efforts to build the foundation of the interface between humans and robots. Researchers have investigated the viability of introducing robots into society in various roles. There are examples of robots delivering flyers [7], assisting in language learning [8], and advising on healthcare decisions [9]. Even if the robots are successful in the short term, humans often eventually become bored and disappointed with them because the gap between the user expectations and their actual experience is too wide [10]
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