Matouš Jelínek

Matouš Jelínek, Eric Nichols, Randy Gomez

This study presents an empirical investigation into the design and impact of autonomous dialogues in human-robot interaction for behavior change coaching. We focus on the use of Haru, a tabletop social robot, and explore the implementation of the Tiny Habits method for fostering positive behavior change. The core of our study lies in developing a fully autonomous dialogue system that maximizes Haru's emotional expressiveness and unique personality. Our methodology involved iterative design and extensive testing of the dialogue system, ensuring it effectively embodied the principles of the Tiny Habits method while also incorporating strategies for trust-raising and trust-dampening. The effectiveness of the final version of the dialogue was evaluated in an experimental study with human participants (N=12). The results indicated a significant improvement in perceptions of Haru's liveliness, interactivity, and neutrality. Additionally, our study contributes to the broader understanding of dialogue design in social robotics, offering practical insights for future developments in the field.

Matouš Jelínek, Nadine Schlicker, Ewart de Visser

Calibrated trust in automated systems (Lee and See 2004) is critical for their safe and seamless integration into society. Users should only rely on a system recommendation when it is actually correct and reject it when it is factually wrong. One requirement to achieve this goal is an accurate trustworthiness assessment, ensuring that the user's perception of the system's trustworthiness aligns with its actual trustworthiness, allowing users to make informed decisions about the extent to which they can rely on the system (Schlicker et al. 2022). We propose six design guidelines to help designers optimize for accurate trustworthiness assessments, thus fostering ethical and responsible human-automation interactions. The proposed guidelines are derived from existing literature in various fields, such as human-computer interaction, cognitive psychology, automation research, user-experience design, and ethics. We are incorporating key principles from the field of pragmatics, specifically the cultivation of common ground (H. H. Clark 1996) and Gricean communication maxims (Grice 1975). These principles are essential for the design of automated systems because the user's perception of the system's trustworthiness is shaped by both environmental contexts, such as organizational culture or societal norms, and by situational context, including the specific circumstances or scenarios in which the interaction occurs (Hoff and Bashir 2015). Our proposed guidelines provide actionable insights for designers to create automated systems that make relevant trustworthiness cues available. This would ideally foster calibrated trust and more satisfactory, productive, and safe interactions between humans and automated systems. Furthermore, the proposed heuristics might work as a tool for evaluating to what extent existing systems enable users to accurately assess a system's trustworthiness.