First encounter with robot Alpha: How individual differences interact with vocal and kinetic cues in users’ social responses

The Computers are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm was proposed more than two decades ago to understand humans’ interaction with computer technologies. Today, as emerging technologies like social robots become more personal and persuasive, questions of how users respond to them socially, what individual factors leverage the relationship, and what constitutes the social influence of these technologies need to be addressed. A lab experiment was conducted to examine the interactions between individual differences and social robots’ vocal and kinetic cues. Results suggested that users developed more trust in a social robot with a human voice than with a synthetic voice. Users also developed more intimacy and interest in the social robot when it was paired with humanlike gestures. Moreover, individual differences including users’ gender, attitudes toward robots, and robot exposure affected their psychological responses. The theoretical, practical, and ethical value of the findings was further discussed in the study.