The Effect of Robot Appearance Types and Task Types on Service Evaluation of a Robot

Abstract

Robot's appearance types could be classified into two types: human-oriented and product-oriented. Human-oriented robot resembles human's appearance whereas product-oriented robot is an intelligent product that robotic technologies are integrated into existing product. In this study, we investigated the impact of two robot appearance types and two task types on service evaluation of a robot. We executed a 2 (robot appearance types: human-oriented vs. product-oriented) x 2 (robot task types: social context vs. task-oriented context) mixed-participants experiment design (N=48). In the case of social context, people evaluated the service provided by a human-oriented robot better than by a product-oriented robot while in the case of task-oriented context, they evaluated the service provided by a product-oriented robot more positively than by a human-oriented robot. Implications for the design of human-robot interaction are discussed.