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Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust

Date:
July 10, 2010
Source:
Northeastern University
Summary:
What can a wide-eyed, talking robot teach us about trust? A lot, according to psychology professors who are conducting innovative research to determine how humans decide to trust strangers -- and if those decisions are accurate.
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What can a wide-eyed, talking robot teach us about trust?

A lot, according to Northeastern psychology professor David DeSteno, and his colleagues, who are conducting innovative research to determine how humans decide to trust strangers -- and if those decisions are accurate.

The interdisciplinary research project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is being conducted in collaboration with Cynthia Breazeal, director of the MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group, Robert Frank, an economist, and David Pizarro, a psychologist, both from Cornell.

The researchers are examining whether nonverbal cues and gestures could affect our trustworthiness judgments. "People tend to mimic each other's body language," said DeSteno, "which might help them develop intuitions about what other people are feeling -- intuitions about whether they'll treat them fairly."

This project tests their theories by having humans interact with the social robot, Nexi, in an attempt to judge her trustworthiness. Unbeknownst to participants, Nexi has been programmed to make gestures while speaking with selected participants -- gestures that the team hypothesizes could determine whether or not she's deemed trustworthy.

"Using a humanoid robot whose every expression and gesture we can control will allow us to better identify the exact cues and psychological processes that underlie humans' ability to accurately predict if a stranger is trustworthy," said DeSteno.

During the first part of the experiment, Nexi makes small talk with her human counterpart for 10 minutes, asking and answering questions about topics such as traveling, where they are from and what they like most about living in Boston.

"The goal was to simulate a normal conversation with accompanying movements to see what the mind would intuitively glean about the trustworthiness of another," said DeSteno.

The participants then play an economic game called "Give Some," which asks them to determine how much money Nexi might give them at the expense of her individual profit. Simultaneously, they decide how much, if any, they'll give to Nexi. The rules of the game allow for two distinct outcomes: higher individual profit for one and loss for the other, or relatively smaller and equal profits for both partners.

"Trust might not be determined by one isolated gesture, but rather a 'dance' that happens between the strangers, which leads them to trust or not trust the other," said DeSteno, who, with his colleagues, will continue testing their theories by seeing if Nexi can be taught to predict the trustworthiness of human partners.


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Materials provided by Northeastern University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Cite This Page:

Northeastern University. "Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 July 2010. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100707220933.htm>.
Northeastern University. (2010, July 10). Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100707220933.htm
Northeastern University. "Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100707220933.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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