The Impact of Non-Technical skills on Trust and Stress

摘要

We present a case study that examined the impact of infusing non-technical skills into the interactions between an expert analyst population and humanoid virtual robot teammates while executing a stressful real-world mission. In the experiment group, a virtual robot employed non-technical skills in addition to the technical skills only present in the control condition. We show that integration of these non-technical skills (rapport, cooperation, and collaboration) led to higher trustworthiness and trust in the virtual robot in the experiment group than the control group. Furthermore, the experiment group perceived lower threat-related appraisals than the control group. These findings contribute to the existing literature by suggesting that fostering non-technical skills with a virtual robot can serve as a bonding mechanism for human-robot teams to promote trustworthiness and trust, and reduce stress in high-stakes scenarios.