How does the status of errant robot affect our desire for contact? - The moderating effect of team interdependence

• Published in: Ergonomics Vol. 67; no. 11; pp. 1683 - 1701
• Main Authors: Liao, Shilong, Lin, Long, Pei, Hairun, Chen, Qin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Taylor & Francis 01.11.2024; Taylor & Francis LLC
• Subjects: Adult; Artificial intelligence; Boundary conditions; Collaboration; Contact; Cooperation; Cooperative Behavior; Desire for contact; Emotions; Errant robot status; Female; Group Processes; Humans; Male; Man-Machine Systems; Negative emotions; Robotics; Robots; Support for robotics research; Team interdependence; Teams; Young Adult; Support for robotics research; Desire for contact; Negative emotions; Errant robot status; Team interdependence
• ISSN: 0014-0139; 1366-5847; 1366-5847
• DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2024.2348672

Technological breakthroughs such as artificial intelligence and sensors make human-robot collaboration a reality. Robots with highly reliable, specialised skills gain informal status in collaborative teams, but factors such as unstructured work environments and task requirements make robot error inevitable. So how do status differences of errant robots affect the desire for contact, and do team characteristics also have an impact? This paper describes an intergroup experiment using the Experimental Vignette Method (EVM), based on the Expectation Violation Theory, 214 subjects were invited to test the following hypotheses: (1) Errant robot status has an influence on employees' desire for contact and support for robotics research through negative emotions; (2) Team interdependence is a boundary condition for the effect of errant robot status on negative emotions. This paper contributes to the literature on employee reactions to robot errors in human-robot collaboration and provides suggestions for robot status design. Complex human-robot collaboration inevitably leads to the phenomenon of robot errors. Based on this, we used an Experimental Vignette Method and found that differences in robot status design and human-robot team design features significantly affect employees' cognitive psychology after robot errors and reduce the negative consequences.