The influence of emotional expressions of an industrial robot on human collaborative decision-making

Abstract

In recent years, robots have been equipped with the ability to express emotions and have begun building social relationships with people. However, the significance and effectiveness of incorporating emotion in industrial robots, which have a strong instrumental nature, is not fully understood. We investigated how emotional expressions of an industrial robot influence human collaborative decision-making. The participants (n=52), in a laboratory experiment, engaged in a dessert survival task with an arm robot in a 2 (emotion expression: present vs. absent) × 2 (competence: high vs. low) between-participants study. Emotion was expressed using color through a LED strip of lights - e.g., anger was conveyed by flashing red. The results showed that emotion expression and competence did not influence the final agreement and, in fact, emotion expressions made the interaction longer, emphasizing the difficulty in communicating emotion and the reason for those expressions. We discuss lessons learnt and provide insight on improving the value of emotion expression in industrial robots.