Examining Trust in Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

PhD Defense

Trust is a multifaceted concept that is a necessary component in most of our interactions, whether they be social, team-based, or goal oriented in nature. As robots enter our world, we need to understand what it means to trust a robot and what factors and situations have an impact on human-robot trust. In this talk, we introduce an overview of trust before discussing two types of trust that can be used to categorize the way human-robot interaction researchers define, investigate, and measure trust. We further explore trust measurements by presenting an online user study that dives deeper into subjective trust questionnaires. We then discuss another user study about the interplay between emotional intelligence, gender, and trust to examine factors that affect trust in robots. Finally, we present a model for trustworthy robot behavior as implemented in the DIARC cognitive architecture.