Exploratory evaluation of politeness in human-robot interaction

TL;DR

This study investigates how different levels of politeness in a robot affect human interaction quality, revealing that politeness influences user preference but older adults struggle to distinguish politeness levels.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for testing politeness levels in human-robot interaction using Lakoff's rules and evaluates their impact on diverse user groups.

Findings

Participants preferred polite robot behavior.

Older adults had difficulty distinguishing politeness levels.

Politeness influences interaction quality.

Abstract

Aiming to explore the impact of politeness on Human robot interaction, this study tested varying levels of politeness in a human robot collaborative table setting task. Polite behaviour was designed based on the politeness rules of Lakoff. A graphical user interface was developed for the interaction with the robot offering three levels of politeness, and an experiment was conducted with 20 older adults and 30 engineering students. Results indicated that the quality of interaction was influenced by politeness as participants significantly preferred the polite mode of the robot. However, the older adults were less able to distinguish between the three politeness levels. Future studies should thus include pre experiment training to increase the familiarity of the older adults with robotic technology. These studies should also include other permutations of the politeness rules of Lakoff.