Impact of politeness and performance quality of android robots on future interaction decisions: a conversational design perspective

Despite robots being applied in various situations of modern society, some people avoid them or do not feel comfortable interacting with them. Designs that allow robots to interact appropriately with people will make a positive impression on them resulting in a better evaluation of robots, which will solve this problem. To establish such a design, this study conducted two scenario-based experiments focusing on the politeness of the robot’s conversation and behavior, and examined the impressions caused when the robot succeeds or slightly fails at a task. These two experiments revealed that regardless of whether the partner is a robot or a human, politeness not only affected the impression of interaction but also the expectations for better task results on the next occasion. Although the effect of politeness on preference toward robot agents was smaller than those toward human agents when agents failed a task, people were more likely to interact with polite robots and human agents again because they thought that they would not fail the next time. This study revealed that politeness motivates people to interact with robots repeatedly even if they make minor mistakes, suggesting that the politeness design is important for encouraging human-robot interaction.