Abubshait Abdulaziz, Weis Patrick P, Momen Ali, Wiese Eva
Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy.
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 4;13(1):16708. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-42510-6.
When interacting with groups of robots, we tend to perceive them as a homogenous group where all group members have similar capabilities. This overgeneralization of capabilities is potentially due to a lack of perceptual experience with robots or a lack of motivation to see them as individuals (i.e., individuation). This can undermine trust and performance in human-robot teams. One way to overcome this issue is by designing robots that can be individuated such that each team member can be provided tasks based on its actual skills. In two experiments, we examine if humans can effectively individuate robots: Experiment 1 (n = 225) investigates how individuation performance of robot stimuli compares to that of human stimuli that either belong to a social ingroup or outgroup. Experiment 2 (n = 177) examines to what extent robots' physical human-likeness (high versus low) affects individuation performance. Results show that although humans are able to individuate robots, they seem to individuate them to a lesser extent than both ingroup and outgroup human stimuli (Experiment 1). Furthermore, robots that are physically more humanlike are initially individuated better compared to robots that are physically less humanlike; this effect, however, diminishes over the course of the experiment, suggesting that the individuation of robots can be learned quite quickly (Experiment 2). Whether differences in individuation performance with robot versus human stimuli is primarily due to a reduced perceptual experience with robot stimuli or due to motivational aspects (i.e., robots as potential social outgroup) should be examined in future studies.
在与机器人团队互动时，我们往往会将它们视为一个同质化的群体，其中所有团队成员都具备相似的能力。这种对能力的过度概括可能是由于缺乏与机器人的感知体验，或者缺乏将它们视为个体的动机（即个体化）。这可能会损害人机团队中的信任和表现。克服这个问题的一种方法是设计能够被个体化的机器人，以便可以根据每个团队成员的实际技能为其分配任务。在两项实验中，我们研究了人类是否能够有效地区分机器人：实验1（n = 225）调查了机器人刺激的个体化表现与属于社会内群体或外群体的人类刺激的个体化表现相比如何。实验2（n = 177）研究了机器人的物理拟人程度（高与低）在多大程度上影响个体化表现。结果表明，虽然人类能够区分机器人，但他们对机器人的区分程度似乎低于内群体和外群体的人类刺激（实验1）。此外，与物理拟人程度较低的机器人相比，物理拟人程度较高的机器人最初的个体化程度更好；然而，这种效果在实验过程中会减弱，这表明对机器人的个体化可以很快学会（实验2）。机器人与人类刺激在个体化表现上的差异主要是由于对机器人刺激的感知体验减少还是由于动机方面（即机器人作为潜在的社会外群体），这应该在未来的研究中进行考察。
