The Relationship Between Trust and Use Choice in Human-Robot Interaction

Objective: To understand the influence of trust on use choice in human-robot interaction via experimental investigation. Background: The general assumption that trusting a robot leads to using that robot has been previously identified, often by asking participants to choose between manually completing a task or using an automated aid. Our work further evaluates the relationship between trust and use choice and examines factors impacting choice. Method: An experiment was conducted wherein participants rated a robot on a trust scale, then made decisions about whether to use that robotic agent or a human agent to complete a task. Participants provided explicit reasoning for their choices. Results: While we found statistical support for the “trust leads to use” relationship, qualitative results indicate other factors are important as well. Conclusion: Results indicated that while trust leads to use, use is also heavily influenced by the specific task at hand. Users more often chose a robot for a dangerous task where loss of life is likely, citing safety as their primary concern. Conversely, users chose humans for the mundane warehouse task, mainly citing financial reasons, specifically fear of job and income loss for the human worker. Application: Understanding the factors driving use choice is key to appropriate interaction in the field of human-robot teaming.