Young Users’ Perception of a Social Robot Displaying Familiarity and Eliciting Disclosure

Abstract

Establishing a positive relationship between a user and a system is considered important or even necessary in applications of social robots or other computational artifacts which require long-term engagement. We discuss several experiments investigating the effects of specific relational verbal behaviors within the broader context of developing a social robot for long-term support of self-management improvement in children with Type 1 diabetes. Our results show that displaying familiarity with a user as well as eliciting the user’s self-disclosure in off-activity talk contribute to the user’s perception of the social robot as a friend. We also observed increased commitment to interaction success related to familiarity display and increased interest in further interactions related to off-activity talk.