Human-Animal Teams as an Analog for Future Human-Robot Teams: Influencing Design and Fostering Trust

Abstract

Our work posits that existing human-animal teams can serve as an analog for developing effective human-robot teams. Existing knowledge of human-animal partnerships can be readily applied to the HRI domain to foster accurate mental models and appropriately calibrated trust in future human-robot teams. Human-animal relationships are examined in terms of the benefiting roles animals can play in enabling effective teaming, as well as the level of team interdependency and team communication, with the goal of developing applications in future human-robot teams.