Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion

While humans actually need some overt communication channel to transmit information, be it verbally or nonverbally, robots could use their network connection to transmit information quickly to other robots. This raises the question how this covert robot-robot communication is perceived by humans. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten, Nikolai Bock
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Communication and Social Robotics Labs 2023-07-01
Series:Human-Machine Communication Journal
Subjects:
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author Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten
Nikolai Bock
author_facet Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten
Nikolai Bock
author_sort Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten
collection DOAJ
description While humans actually need some overt communication channel to transmit information, be it verbally or nonverbally, robots could use their network connection to transmit information quickly to other robots. This raises the question how this covert robot-robot communication is perceived by humans. The current study investigates how transparency about communication happening between two robots affects humans’ trust in and perception of these robots as well as their feeling of being included/excluded in the interaction. Three different robot-robot communication styles were analyzed: silent, robotic language, and natural language. Results show that when robots transmit information in a robotic language (beep sounds) this leads to lower trust and more feelings of social exclusion than in the silent (i.e., covert) or natural language conditions. Results support the notion that humans are over-sensitive to signs of ostracism which seems to be detected in this style of overt but nonhuman robot-robot communication.
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spelling doaj.art-d949b6ca49914f019e04085f4ebe7cc42023-07-16T20:59:22ZengCommunication and Social Robotics LabsHuman-Machine Communication Journal2638-602X2638-60382023-07-01611713410.30658/hmc.6.7Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social ExclusionAstrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2497-143XNikolai Bock1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4668-9523RWTH Aachen UniversityRWTH Aachen UniversityWhile humans actually need some overt communication channel to transmit information, be it verbally or nonverbally, robots could use their network connection to transmit information quickly to other robots. This raises the question how this covert robot-robot communication is perceived by humans. The current study investigates how transparency about communication happening between two robots affects humans’ trust in and perception of these robots as well as their feeling of being included/excluded in the interaction. Three different robot-robot communication styles were analyzed: silent, robotic language, and natural language. Results show that when robots transmit information in a robotic language (beep sounds) this leads to lower trust and more feelings of social exclusion than in the silent (i.e., covert) or natural language conditions. Results support the notion that humans are over-sensitive to signs of ostracism which seems to be detected in this style of overt but nonhuman robot-robot communication.robot-robot interactionsocial exclusionostracismtrust
spellingShingle Astrid Rosenthal-von der Pütten
Nikolai Bock
Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
Human-Machine Communication Journal
robot-robot interaction
social exclusion
ostracism
trust
title Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
title_full Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
title_fullStr Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
title_full_unstemmed Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
title_short Seriously, What Did One Robot Say to the Other? Being Left out From Communication by Robots Causes Feelings of Social Exclusion
title_sort seriously what did one robot say to the other being left out from communication by robots causes feelings of social exclusion
topic robot-robot interaction
social exclusion
ostracism
trust
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