Communicating Dominance in a Nonanthropomorphic Robot Using Locomotion

Dominance is a key aspect of interpersonal relationships. To what extent do nonverbal indicators related to dominance status translate to a nonanthropomorphic robot? An experiment (N = 25) addressed whether a mobile robot's motion style can influence people's perceptions of its status. Using concepts from improv theater literature, we developed two motion styles across three scenarios (robot makes lateral motions, approaches, and departs) to communicate a robot's dominance status through nonverbal expression. In agreement with the literature, participants described a motion style that was fast, in the foreground, and more animated as higher status than a motion style that was slow, in the periphery, and less animated. Participants used fewer negative emotion words to describe the robot with the purportedly high-status movements versus the purportedly low-status movements, but used more negative emotion words to describe the robot when it made departing motions that occurred in the same style. This result provides evidence that guidelines from improvisational theater for using nonverbal expression to perform interpersonal status can be applied to influence perception of a nonanthropomorphic robot's status, thus suggesting that useful models for more complicated behaviors might similarly be derived from performance literature and theory

Are human-like robots trusted like humans? An investigation into the effect of anthropomorphism on trust in robots measured by expected value as reflected by feedback related negativity and P300

Robots are becoming more prevalently used in industry and society. However, in order to ensure effective use of the trust, must be calibrated correctly. Anthropomorphism is one factors which is important in trust in robots (Hancock et al., 2011). Questionnaires and investment games have been used to investigate the impact of anthropomorphism on trust, however, these methods have led to disparate findings. Neurophysiological methods have also been used as an implicit measure of trust. Feedback related negativity (FRN) and P300 are event related potential (ERP) components which have been associated with processes involved in trust such as outcome evaluation. This study uses the trust game (Berg et al., 1995), along with questionnaires and ERP data to investigate trust and expectations towards three agents varying in anthropomorphism, a human, an anthropomorphic robot, and a computer. The behavioural and self-reported findings suggest that the human is perceived as the most trustworthy and there is no difference between the robot and the computer. The ERP data revealed a robot driven difference in FRN and P300 activation, which suggests that robots violated expectations more so than a human or a computer. The present findings are explained in terms of the perfect automation schema and trustworthiness and dominance perceptions. Future research into the impact of voice pitch on dominance and trustworthiness and the impact of trust violations is suggested in order to gain a more holistic picture of the impact of anthropomorphism on trust

Artificial Intelligence leadership : how trust and fairness perceptions impact turnover intentions through psychological safety

Artificial intelligence agent’s intervention in decision making at organizational environments has been increasing rapidly. These agents bring advantages in decision making due to their objectivity, efficiency, and superior capacity of information processing while lacking human weaknesses such as fatigue or self-interest. However, their perception by organizational employees might be less optimistic, as artificial intelligence leaders might be perceived as less fair and just. This dissertation intends to study the effects that this new type of leadership has on employees' turnover intentions, an important variable as high levels of voluntary turnover cause several losses for companies both in terms of cost increase and loss of talented human resources. Additionally, I propose the decrease in employee’s psychological safety to mediate this relationship. Finally, I propose a way to overcome this effect by manipulating the perceptions of trust and justice of these leaders, in order to try to counter the negative effect of non-human leadership. The results of this study revealed a significant effect of the leader agent on the employees' exit intentions as well as on their psychological safety, including as a mediator of the former. Regarding the moderation of trust and justice perceptions, the results showed that these testimonials have a direct effect on psychological safety, and an indirect one in turnover intentions through psychological safety.A intervenção de agentes de inteligência artificial na tomada de decisão em ambientes organizacionais tem aumentado rapidamente. Estes agentes trazem vantagens para a tomada de decisão devido à sua objetividade, eficiência e superior capacidade de processamento de informação, ao mesmo tempo que não possuem fragilidades humanas tais como fadiga ou interesses próprios. No entanto, a sua perceção por parte dos funcionários da organização pode ser menos otimista, pois os líderes de inteligência artificial podem ser vistos como menos justos e confiáveis. Esta dissertação pretende estudar os efeitos que este novo tipo de liderança tem sobre as intenções de saída dos funcionários, uma variável importante, já que altos níveis de rotatividade voluntária causam várias perdas para as empresas, tanto em termos de aumento de custos quanto de perda de recursos humanos talentosos. Além disso, proponho a diminuição da segurança psicológica dos funcionários para mediar esta relação. Por fim, proponho uma forma de superar esse efeito, manipulando as perceções de confiança e justiça desses líderes, a fim de tentar combater o efeito negativo de uma liderança não humana. Os resultados deste estudo revelaram um efeito significativo do agente de liderança nas intenções de saída dos funcionários e em sua segurança psicológica, inclusive como mediador do primeiro. No que se refere à moderação das perceções de confiança e justiça, os resultados mostraram que estes têm um efeito direto na segurança psicológica, e um efeito indireto nas intenções de saída através da segurança psicológica

The Effect of Audio-Visual Smiles on Social Influence in a Cooperative Human–Agent Interaction Task

Emotional expressivity is essential for human interactions, informing both perception and decision-making. Here, we examine whether creating an audio-visual emotional channel mismatch influences decision-making in a cooperative task with a virtual character. We created a virtual character that was either congruent in its emotional expression (smiling in the face and voice) or incongruent (smiling in only one channel). People (N = 98) evaluated the character in terms of valence and arousal in an online study; then, visitors in a museum played the “lunar survival task” with the character over three experiments (N = 597, 78, 101, respectively). Exploratory results suggest that multi-modal expressions are perceived, and reacted upon, differently than unimodal expressions, supporting previous theories of audio-visual integration