Trust regulation in Social Robotics: From Violation to Repair

Abstract

While trust in human-robot interaction is increasingly recognized as necessary for the implementation of social robots, our understanding of regulating trust in human-robot interaction is yet limited. In the current experiment, we evaluated different approaches to trust calibration in human-robot interaction. The within-subject experimental approach utilized five different strategies for trust calibration: proficiency, situation awareness, transparency, trust violation, and trust repair. We implemented these interventions into a within-subject experiment where participants (N=24) teamed up with a social robot and played a collaborative game. The level of trust was measured after each section using the Multi-Dimensional Measure of Trust (MDMT) scale. As expected, the interventions have a significant effect on i) violating and ii) repairing the level of trust throughout the interaction. Consequently, the robot demonstrating situation awareness was perceived as significantly more benevolent than the baseline.