Exploring Theory of Mind for Human-Robot Collaboration

Marta Romeo, Peter E. Mckenna, David Robb, Gnanathusharan Rajendran, Birthe Nesset, Angelo Cangelosi, Helen Hastie

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

266 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The ability to impute mental states to oneself or others, or Theory of Mind (ToM), has been intrinsically linked to trust between humans. However, less is known about how a robot mimicking ToM affects users’ trust and behaviour. We explore this through an online study, where we compare three robot personas in a cooperative maze navigation task: one neutral, one that explains its reasoning in technical terms, and one that mimics ToM. We show that ToM influences human decision-making behaviour and trust in a way that makes it more appropriate with respect to the competencies of the robot. This is key for human-robot collaboration and adoption of robotics moving forward.

Index Terms—trust, theory of mind, online experiment
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2022)
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 30 May 2022

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Exploring Theory of Mind for Human-Robot Collaboration'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this