Can you pass that tool?: Implications of Indirect Speech in Physical Human-Robot Collaboration

TL;DR

This study investigates how robots understanding indirect speech acts (ISAs) affects human-robot collaboration, showing improvements in perception, performance, and trust, with effects varying by task and context.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the impact of ISA comprehension in physical HRC, highlighting its potential to enhance collaboration and trust.

Findings

Robots understanding ISAs improve perceived anthropomorphism.

ISAs enhance team performance and trust in HRC.

Effectiveness of ISAs depends on task and context.

Abstract

Indirect speech acts (ISAs) are a natural pragmatic feature of human communication, allowing requests to be conveyed implicitly while maintaining subtlety and flexibility. Although advancements in speech recognition have enabled natural language interactions with robots through direct, explicit commands -- roviding clarity in communication -- the rise of large language models presents the potential for robots to interpret ISAs. However, empirical evidence on the effects of ISAs on human-robot collaboration (HRC) remains limited. To address this, we conducted a Wizard-of-Oz study (N=36), engaging a participant and a robot in collaborative physical tasks. Our findings indicate that robots capable of understanding ISAs significantly improve human's perceived robot anthropomorphism, team performance, and trust. However, the effectiveness of ISAs is task- and context-dependent, thus requiring careful use. These results highlight the importance of appropriately integrating direct and indirect requests in HRC to enhance collaborative experiences and task performance.