Mind Perception in HRI: Exploring Users' Attribution of Mental and Emotional States to Robots with Different Behavioural Styles

Theory of Mind is crucial to understand and predict others' behaviour, underpinning the ability to engage in complex social interactions. Many studies have evaluated a robot's ability to attribute thoughts, beliefs, and emotions to humans during social interactions, but few studies have investigated human attribution to robots with such capabilities. This study contributes to this direction by evaluating how the cognitive and emotional capabilities attributed to the robot by humans may be influenced by some behavioural characteristics of robots during the interaction. For this reason, we used the Dimensions of Mind Perception questionnaire to measure participants' perceptions of different robot behaviour styles, namely Friendly, Neutral, and Authoritarian, which we designed and validated in our previous works. The results obtained confirmed our hypotheses because people judged the robot's mental capabilities differently depending on the interaction style. Particularly, the Friendly is considered more capable of experiencing positive emotions such as Pleasure, Desire, Consciousness, and Joy; conversely, the Authoritarian is considered more capable of experiencing negative emotions such as Fear, Pain, and Rage than the Friendly. Moreover, they confirmed that interaction styles differently impacted the perception of the participants on the Agency dimension, Communication, and Thought.

A Meta-Analysis on Remote HRI and In-Person HRI: What Is a Socially Assistive Robot to Do?

Recently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related social distancing measures, in-person activities have been significantly reduced to limit the spread of the virus, especially in healthcare settings. This has led to loneliness and social isolation for our most vulnerable populations. Socially assistive robots can play a crucial role in minimizing these negative affects. Namely, socially assistive robots can provide assistance with activities of daily living, and through cognitive and physical stimulation. The ongoing pandemic has also accelerated the exploration of remote presence ranging from workplaces to home and healthcare environments. Human-robot interaction (HRI) researchers have also explored the use of remote HRI to provide cognitive assistance in healthcare settings. Existing in-person and remote comparison studies have investigated the feasibility of these types of HRI on individual scenarios and tasks. However, no consensus on the specific differences between in-person HRI and remote HRI has been determined. Furthermore, to date, the exact outcomes for in-person HRI versus remote HRI both with a physical socially assistive robot have not been extensively compared and their influence on physical embodiment in remote conditions has not been addressed. In this paper, we investigate and compare in-person HRI versus remote HRI for robots that assist people with activities of daily living and cognitive interventions. We present the first comprehensive investigation and meta-analysis of these two types of robotic presence to determine how they influence HRI outcomes and impact user tasks. In particular, we address research questions regarding experience, perceptions and attitudes, and the efficacy of both humanoid and non-humanoid socially assistive robots with different populations and interaction modes. The use of remote HRI to provide assistance with daily activities and interventions is a promising emerging field for healthcare applications.