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Effects of Failure Types on Trust Repairs in Human–Robot Interactions

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Abstract

System performance is the central determinant of user trust in human–machine communication; however, performance failure is inevitable. This study develops a three-fold typology of performance failures (i.e., logic, semantic, and syntax) commonly observed in human-robot interactions based on the differences between the expected and actual outcomes. Herein, 1027 observations are collected from an online experiment to elucidate how the three types of failure and four repair methods (namely, internal attribution apology, external attribution apology, denial, and no repair) impact user trust while examining blame attributions as an underlying mechanism. The results reveal that despite some similarities, the interactions between trust violation types and repair methods differ in robot-to-human trust repair from those in human-to-human trust repair, which contradicts previous findings. Logic failures are found to be the most detrimental category of performance failures, and the internal-attribution apology is the optimal repair strategy. Notably, participants report greater levels of competence-based trust beliefs if they believe that the situation is jointly controlled by the human interactant and robot.

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Notes

  1. \(\hbox {CVR} = (\hbox {n}_e - N/2) / (N/2) \hbox {n}_e\) = number of subject matter experts (SMEs) indicating that an item is “extremely important to include in the scale”; N = total number of SMEs.

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Funding

This study was funded by Korea University (K2119471).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, 4005 Social Sciences and Media Studies, Santa Barbara, California, 93106-4020, USA

    Xinyi Zhang

  2. School of Media and Communication, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, Korea

    Sun Kyong Lee

  3. Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Korea

    Hoyoung Maeng

  4. Department of Psychology, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Korea

    Sowon Hahn

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  1. Xinyi Zhang
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  4. Sowon Hahn
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Correspondence to Sun Kyong Lee.

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Data collection for this study was funded by the new faculty research grant of School of Media & communication at Korea University (K2119471).

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Zhang, X., Lee, S.K., Maeng, H. et al. Effects of Failure Types on Trust Repairs in Human–Robot Interactions. Int J of Soc Robotics 15, 1619–1635 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-023-01059-0

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