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Does the Presence of Social Agents Improve Cognitive Performance on a Vigilance Task?

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Social Robotics (ICSR 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9388))

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Abstract

Humans are historically bad at performing cognitive tasks that require sustained attention. Social facilitation theory states that the real, imagined, or implied presence of other social agents can improve cognitive performance. Typically these agents are other humans, but the current study explores the possibility that robots can trigger social facilitation effects. We hypothesized that more humanlike social stimuli are (1) more likely to be ascribed internal states (e.g., having a mind, having emotions, having preferences), and (2) more likely to induce social facilitation on a vigilance task. Experiment 1 investigates the relationship between physical humanness and attributions of intentionality by comparing ratings of internal states for three agents (human, robot, and nonsocial). In Experiment 2, we examine whether physical humanness results in improved performance on a vigilance task through social facilitation. While Experiment 1 showed the expected positive relationship between human appearance and mind attribution, the degree to which mental states were attributed to an agent did not influence performance on the vigilance task. The implications for social robotics are discussed.

A.R. Mandell and M.A. Smith—contributed equally to the manuscript and share first authorship.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Arielle R. Mandell, Melissa A. Smith, Molly C. Martini, Tyler H. Shaw & Eva Wiese

Authors
  1. Arielle R. Mandell
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  2. Melissa A. Smith
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  3. Molly C. Martini
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  4. Tyler H. Shaw
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  5. Eva Wiese
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arielle R. Mandell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Robotics and Computer Vision Lab, ENSTA-ParisTech, Palaiseau, France

    Adriana Tapus

  2. Inst für Informatik, Human-Ctr Multimedi, Universität Augsburg, Augsburg, Bayern, Germany

    Elisabeth André

  3. LIMSI-CNRS, Orsay, France

    Jean-Claude Martin

  4. Robotics and Computer Vision Lab, ENSTA-ParisTech, Palaiseau, France

    François Ferland

  5. LIMSI-CNRS, Orsay, France

    Mehdi Ammi

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Mandell, A.R., Smith, M.A., Martini, M.C., Shaw, T.H., Wiese, E. (2015). Does the Presence of Social Agents Improve Cognitive Performance on a Vigilance Task?. In: Tapus, A., André, E., Martin, JC., Ferland, F., Ammi, M. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9388. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25554-5_42

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25554-5_42

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25553-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25554-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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