Connection-Coordination Rapport (CCR) Scale: A Dual-Factor Scale to Measure Human-Robot Rapport

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Connection-Coordination Rapport (CCR) Scale, a reliable and valid 18-item instrument designed to measure human-robot rapport, capturing two key factors: connection and coordination, across different interaction contexts.

Contribution

The study develops and validates the first dual-factor scale for assessing human-robot rapport, filling a gap in existing measurement tools.

Findings

The CCR scale has high reliability and validity.

Rapport scores are higher with responsive robots.

The scale works across first-person and third-person perspectives.

Abstract

Robots, particularly in service and companionship roles, must develop positive relationships with people they interact with regularly to be successful. These positive human-robot relationships can be characterized as establishing "rapport," which indicates mutual understanding and interpersonal connection that form the groundwork for successful long-term human-robot interaction. However, the human-robot interaction research literature lacks scale instruments to assess human-robot rapport in a variety of situations. In this work, we developed the 18-item Connection-Coordination Rapport (CCR) Scale to measure human-robot rapport. We first ran Study 1 (N = 288) where online participants rated videos of human-robot interactions using a set of candidate items. Our Study 1 results showed the discovery of two factors in our scale, which we named "Connection" and "Coordination." We then evaluated this scale by running Study 2 (N = 201) where online participants rated a new set of human-robot interaction videos with our scale and an existing rapport scale from virtual agents research for comparison. We also validated our scale by replicating a prior in-person human-robot interaction study, Study 3 (N = 44), and found that rapport is rated significantly greater when participants interacted with a responsive robot (responsive condition) as opposed to an unresponsive robot (unresponsive condition). Results from these studies demonstrate high reliability and validity for the CCR scale, which can be used to measure rapport in both first-person and third-person perspectives. We encourage the adoption of this scale in future studies to measure rapport in a variety of human-robot interactions.