Social robots on a global stage: Establishing a role for culture during human-robot interaction

Abstract

Robotic agents designed to assist people across a variety of social and service settings are becoming increasingly prevalent across countries and cultures. Here we synthesise two decades of empirical evidence from human-robot interaction (HRI) research, and focus on cultural influences on expectations of and responses to social robots, as well as the utility of robots displaying culturally-specific social cues for improving human engagement. Findings suggest complex and intricate relationships between culture and human cognition in the context of HRI. The studies reviewed here transcend the often-studied and prototypical East-West dichotomy of cultures, and explore how people’s perceptions of robots are informed by their national culture as well as their experiences with robots. While many of the findings presented in this review raise intriguing questions about how robotics designers and cultural psychologists might conceptualise culturally-sensitive robots in the future, we also discuss how methodological discordance and low statistical power contribute to a worrying lack of generalisability, and propose several avenues for future work to begin to correct for these shortcomings. In sum, we highlight the critical role of culture in mediating efforts to develop robots aligned with our cultural backgrounds, and argue for further research into the role of culturally-informed robotic design and programming in facilitating human-robot interaction.