Impact of Robot Encouragement on User Willingness to Re-engage with the Robot in Task Collaboration

About The Project

Encouragement has been shown to enhance engagement, motivation, and task performance. This project explores whether these effects persist when encouragement is provided by a social robot, specifically the Furhat robot. Participants are tasked with folding an origami figure under two experimental conditions:

1. Encouragement Condition: The robot provides positive feedback and supportive cues.
2. No Encouragement Condition: The robot delivers task-focused instructions without encouragement.

Objectives

• Assess if robot encouragement influences willingness to re-engage with the robot.
• Determine if encouragement affects task completion time.

Key Hypotheses

• Encouragement leads to faster task completion.
• Encouragement increases willingness to interact with the robot again.

Methodology

Participants

• 20-30 participants recruited from the KTH University community.
• Random assignment to one of two conditions: Encouragement or No Encouragement.

Experimental Setup

• Robot: Furhat social robot with speech and non-verbal behaviors.
• Task: Participants fold a simple origami figure following the robot’s step-by-step instructions.
  • Encouragement Condition: Positive feedback and engaging behaviors.
  • No Encouragement Condition: Minimal feedback and task-focused interaction.

Procedure

1. Participants sign a consent form and receive an introduction.
2. They perform the origami task guided by the robot.
3. Interaction lasts 5-10 minutes.
4. Post-task survey measures willingness to re-engage and gathers qualitative feedback.

Measures

• Primary:
  • Willingness to re-engage (Yes/No).
  • Task completion time (in seconds).
• Secondary:
  • Open-ended feedback on the robot interaction experience.

Analysis

• Chi-square test for willingness to re-engage.
• T-test for task completion time.
• Thematic analysis for qualitative feedback.

Results

Pending final analysis, the study aims to provide insights into:

• The role of robot encouragement in enhancing task efficiency and engagement.
• Patterns in user feedback regarding robot interaction.

Contributors

• Tobias Carlsson
• Fatemeh Abdollahnazhad
• Pere Mateu Raventós
• Wei Kang Wong

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Acknowledgments

• Furhat Robotics: Furhat Website
• References: Research studies on encouragement in HRI and education.