Effects of Interfaces on Human-Robot Trust: Specifying and Visualizing Physical Zones

TL;DR

This study examines how different interface styles and feedback mechanisms affect human trust in robots during shared space tasks, highlighting the importance of interface-feedback pairing for trust and usability.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative evaluation of physical, AR, and map-based interfaces with various feedback methods on human-robot trust and usability.

Findings

Interfaces and feedback significantly influence trust levels.

Participants preferred mixed interface-feedback pairs.

Trust correlates with perceived robot awareness and control.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the influence interfaces and feedback have on human-robot trust levels when operating in a shared physical space. The task we use is specifying a "no-go" region for a robot in an indoor environment. We evaluate three styles of interface (physical, AR, and map-based) and four feedback mechanisms (no feedback, robot drives around the space, an AR "fence", and the region marked on the map). Our evaluation looks at both usability and trust. Specifically, if the participant trusts that the robot "knows" where the no-go region is and their confidence in the robot's ability to avoid that region. We use both self-reported and indirect measures of trust and usability. Our key findings are: 1) interfaces and feedback do influence levels of trust; 2) the participants largely preferred a mixed interface-feedback pair, where the modality for the interface differed from the feedback.