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1. Investigating Robot Moral Advice to Deter Cheating Behavior

   Kim, Boyoung; Wen, Ruchen; de Visser, Ewart J.; Zhu, Qin; Williams, Tom; Phillips, Elizabeth (January 2021, TSAR Workshop at ROMAN 2021)

   null (Ed.)

   We examined whether a robot that proactively offers moral advice promoting the norm of honesty can discourage people from cheating. Participants were presented with an opportunity to cheat in a die-rolling game. Prior to playing the game, participants received from either a NAO robot or a human, a piece of moral advice grounded in either deontological, virtue, or Confucian role ethics, or did not receive any advice. We found that moral advice grounded in Confucian role ethics could reduce cheating when the advice was delivered by a human. No advice was effective when a robot delivered moral advice. These findings highlight challenges in building robots that can possibly guide people to follow moral norms. 

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2. Perception of Social Intelligence in Robots Performing False-Belief Tasks

   https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN46459.2019.8956467  

   Sturgeon, Stephanie; Palmer, Andrew; Blankenburg, Janelle; Feil-Seifer, David (October 2019, International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN))

   This study evaluated how a robot demonstrating a Theory of Mind (ToM) influenced human perception of social intelligence and animacy in a human-robot interaction. Data was gathered through an online survey where participants watched a video depicting a NAO robot either failing or passing the Sally-Anne false-belief task. Participants (N = 60) were randomly assigned to either the Pass or Fail condition. A Perceived Social Intelligence Survey and the Perceived Intelligence and Animacy subsections of the Godspeed Questionnaire were used as measures. The Godspeed was given before viewing the task to measure participant expectations, and again after to test changes in opinion. Our findings show that robots demonstrating ToM significantly increase perceived social intelligence, while robots demonstrating ToM deficiencies are perceived as less socially intelligent. 

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3. Not in my house!: Children Playing an Online Game with Robots Show Low Trust and Closeness with Ingroup Robots

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3434074.3447204  

   Rheman, Jennifer; Fraune, Marlena R. (March 2021, Not in my house!: Children Playing an Online Game with Robots Show Low Trust and Closeness with Ingroup Robots.)

   null (Ed.)

   This paper presents preliminary research on whether children will accept a robot as part of their ingroup, and on how a robot's group membership affects trust, closeness, and social support. Trust is important in human-robot interactions because it affects if people will follow robots' advice. In this study, we randomly assigned 11- and 12-year-old participants to a condition such that participants were either on a team with the robot (ingroup) or were opponents of the robot (outgroup) for an online game. Thus far, we have eight participants in the ingroup condition. Our preliminary results showed that children had a low level of trust, closeness, and social support with the robot. Participants had a much more negative response than we anticipated. We speculate that there will be a more positive response with an in-person setting rather than a remote one. 

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4. "What Does Your Robot Do?" A Tabletop Role-Playing Game to Support Robot Design

   https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515554  

   Collins, Sawyer; Sabanovic, Selma (August 2021, 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN))

   null (Ed.)

   Social robot co-design requires aiding users as they imagine these novel devices within their everyday lives and enabling designers to understand and address users’ experiences. This paper presents the exploratory development and evaluation of a role-playing game aimed at identifying the desired features and uses of a social robot that can assist people diagnosed with depression. Participants (n = 16) played the game as a character with depression, designed a companion robot for that character, and chose reactions to daily challenges. Though participants initially selected robot capabilities based on their own needs, after the game they identified alternative designs that would better address daily challenges faced by individuals with depression. We discuss aspects of the game that allowed participants to understand how various robot characteristics can address the experience of depression and suggest how role-playing games can support users and designers in identifying beneficial features and uses of emerging robotic technologies. 

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5. Individual differences in cooperative and competitive play strategies

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293583  

   Hauge, Theresa C; Ferris, Daniel P; Seidler, Rachael D (November 2023, PLOS ONE)

   Barreda-Tarrazona, Iván (Ed.)

   Cooperation and competition are common in social interactions. It is not clear how individual differences in personality may predict performance strategies under these two contexts. We evaluated whether instructions to play cooperatively and competitively would differentially affect dyads playing a Pong video game. We hypothesized that instructions to play cooperatively would result in lower overall points scored and differences in paddle control kinematics relative to when participants were instructed to play competitively. We also predicted that higher scores in prosociality and Sportspersonship would be related to better performance during cooperative than competitive conditions. Methods: Pairs of participants played a Pong video game under cooperative and competitive instructions. During competitive trials, participants were instructed to score more points against one another to win the game. During the cooperative trials, participants were instructed to work together to score as few points against one another as possible. After game play, each participant completed surveys so we could measure their trait prosociality and Sportspersonship.Results: Condition was a significant predictor of where along the paddle participants hit the ball, which controlled ball exit angles. Specifically, during cooperation participants concentrated ball contacts on the paddle towards the center to produce more consistent rebound angles. We found a significant correlation of Sex and the average points scored by participants during cooperative games, competitive games, and across all trials. Sex was also significantly correlated with paddle kinematics during cooperative games. The overall scores on the prosociality and Sportspersonship surveys were not significantly correlated with the performance outcomes in cooperative and competitive games. The dimension of prosociality assessing empathic concern was significantly correlated with performance outcomes during cooperative video game play. Discussion: No Sportspersonship survey score was able to predict cooperative or competitive game performance, suggesting that Sportspersonship personality assessments are not reliable predictors of cooperative or competitive behaviors translated to a virtual game setting. Survey items and dimensions probing broader empathic concern may be more effective predictors of cooperative and competitive performance during interactive video game play. Further testing is encouraged to assess the efficacy of prosocial personality traits as predictors of cooperative and competitive video game behavior. 

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