Step Aside! VR-Based Evaluation of Adaptive Robot Conflict Resolution Strategies for Domestic Service Robots

Bibliographic Data

ID8092422
AuthorsFranziska Babel (0000-0001-8249-7708, corresponding author), Andrea Vogt (0000-0003-3523-9911), Philipp Höck (0000-0002-9831-9241), Johannes Kraus (0000-0001-7015-8477), Florian Angerer, Tina Seufert (0000-0002-8685-4116), Martin Baumann (0000-0001-9871-7568)
Year2022
Volume14
Issue5
Pages1239-1260
Publication date2022-02-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Social Robotics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1875-4791 • E-ISSN: 1875-4805
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12369-021-00858-7
OpenAlexW4210362314
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited116

As domestic service robots become more prevalent and act autonomously, conflicts of interest between humans and robots become more likely. Hereby, the robot shall be able to negotiate with humans effectively and appropriately to fulfill its tasks. One promising approach could be the imitation of human conflict resolution behaviour and the use of persuasive requests. The presented study complements previous work by investigating combinations of assertive and polite request elements (appeal, showing benefit, command), which have been found to be effective in HRI. The conflict resolution strategies each contained two types of requests, the order of which was varied to either mimic or contradict human conflict resolution behaviour. The strategies were also adapted to the users’ compliance behaviour. If the participant complied after the first request, no second request was issued. In a virtual reality experiment ( $$N = 57$$ N = 57 ) with two trials, six different strategies were evaluated regarding user compliance, robot acceptance, trust, and fear and compared to a control condition featuring no request elements. The experiment featured a human-robot goal conflict scenario concerning household tasks at home. The results show that in trial 1, strategies reflecting human politeness and conflict resolution norms were more accepted, polite, and trustworthier than strategies entailing a command. No differences were found for trial 2. Overall, compliance rates were comparable to human-human-requests. Compliance rates did not differ between strategies. The contribution is twofold: presenting an experimental paradigm to investigate a human-robot conflict scenario and providing a first step to developing acceptable robot conflict resolution strategies based on human behaviour.

Appeal · Aside · Business · Compliance (psychology · Conflict resolution · Human–computer interaction · Negotiation · Politeness · Political science · Robot · Service (business · AI in Service Interactions · Computer Science · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Robot Interaction and HRI · Artificial Intelligence · Law · Social Psychology