The Effects of Type and Form of Collaborative Robots in Manufacturing on Trustworthiness, Risk Perceived, and Acceptance

As one of the latest applications in the field of artificial intelligence, collaborative robots (cobots) are playing an increasingly important role in manufacturing. This study is aimed to ascertain the effects of the type and form of a collaborative robot in manufacturing on trustworthiness, risk perceived, and acceptance. A 2 (single-arm cobot/dual-arm cobot) * 2 (cobot with a screen/cobot without a screen) full factorial within-subject experiment was conducted by using eye-tracking metrics and subjective questionnaires. A total of 40 participants were recruited and all stimuli were played randomly. Results suggest both features are essential attributes with interactive effects in the process of viewing tasks. For single-arm cobots, cobots without a screen showed higher trustworthiness than those with a screen. Dual-arm cobots with a screen showed higher perceived risk than those without a screen. Furthermore, compared to the cobots without a screen, cobots with a screen evidenced more fixation counts and longer fixation duration, which means more attention resources and greater cognitive effort were required. The same results were also found in dual-arm cobots. This study contributes to the extant literature on cobot design and training by emphasizing the effect of cobot form and type in particular.