POIROT: Investigating Direct Tangible vs. Digitally Mediated Interaction and Attitude Moderation in Multi-party Murder Mystery Games

TL;DR

This study examines how physical versus digital interaction modes in multi-party murder mystery games affect user engagement, revealing that negative attitudes towards robots moderate the effectiveness of tangible interfaces.

Contribution

It introduces a conditional model of human-robot interaction, showing that user attitudes influence the impact of tangible versus digital interfaces in social gaming contexts.

Findings

Tangibility does not universally enhance engagement.

Negative attitudes towards robots reduce immersion with tangible interfaces.

Digital interfaces serve as social buffers for anxious users.

Abstract

As social robots take on increasingly complex roles like game masters (GMs) in multi-party games, the expectation that physicality universally enhances user experience remains debated. This study challenges the "one-size-fits-all" view of tangible interaction by identifying a critical boundary condition: users' Negative Attitudes towards Robots (NARS). In a between-subjects experiment (N = 67), a custom-built robot GM facilitated a multi-party murder mystery game (MMG) by delivering clues either through direct tangible interaction or a digitally mediated interface. Baseline multivariate analysis (MANOVA) showed no significant main effect of delivery modality, confirming that tangibility alone does not guarantee superior engagement. However, primary analysis using multilevel linear models (MLM) revealed a reliable moderation: participants high in NARS experienced markedly lower narrative immersion under tangible delivery, whereas those with low NARS scores showed no such decrement. Qualitative findings further illuminate this divergence: tangibility provides novelty and engagement for some but imposes excessive proxemic friction for anxious users, for whom the digital interface acts as a protective social buffer. These results advance a conditional model of HRI and emphasize the necessity for adaptive systems that can tailor interaction modalities to user predispositions.