Do Mistakes Matter? Comparing Trust Responses of Different Age Groups to Errors Made by Physically Assistive Robots

TL;DR

This study investigates how errors made by physically assistive robots affect trust among different age groups, revealing that age and task type influence trust responses and resilience to robot mistakes.

Contribution

It provides new insights into age-related differences in trust responses to robot errors during assistive tasks, highlighting the importance of considering user age in robot design.

Findings

Older adults' trust is less affected by robot errors than younger adults.

Trust responses vary depending on the task being performed.

Age influences the factors used to evaluate robot trustworthiness.

Abstract

Trust is a key factor in ensuring acceptable human-robot interaction, especially in settings where robots may be assisting with critical activities of daily living. When practically deployed, robots are bound to make occasional mistakes, yet the degree to which these errors will impact a care recipient's trust in the robot, especially in performing physically assistive tasks, remains an open question. To investigate this, we conducted experiments where participants interacted with physically assistive robots which would occasionally make intentional mistakes while performing two different tasks: bathing and feeding. Our study considered the error response of two populations: younger adults at a university (median age 26) and older adults at an independent living facility (median age 83). We observed that the impact of errors on a users' trust in the robot depends on both their age and the task that the robot is performing. We also found that older adults tend to evaluate the robot on factors unrelated to the robot's performance, making their trust in the system more resilient to errors when compared to younger adults. Code and supplementary materials are available on our project webpage.