Investigating the Validity of Online Robot Evaluations: Comparison of Findings from an One-Sample Online and Laboratory Study

Abstract

As the number of online studies in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI) increases, the comparability of the results of online studies with those of laboratory experiments needs further investigation. In this one-sample study, 29 participants experienced three different commercially-available service robots first in an online session and then in a lab experiment and evaluated the robots regarding their trust, fear and intention to use the robot. Furthermore, several robot characteristics were evaluated (e.g. humanness, uncanniness). Overall, study results indicate high comparability of findings from online and lab experiments for trust, fear and robot characteristics like humanness and uncanniness. Same relative differences between the robots were found for both presentation methods except for intention to use and robot reliability. This preliminary study provides insights into online study validity and makes recommendations for future research.