Believing in BERT: Using expressive communication to enhance trust and counteract operational error in physical Human-robot interaction
Open accessAbstract
Strategies are necessary to mitigate the impact of unexpected behavior in collaborative robotics, and research to develop solutions is lacking. Our aim here was to explore the benefits of an affective interaction, as opposed to a more efficient, less error prone but non-communicative one. The experiment took the form of an omelet-making task, with a wide range of participants interacting directly with BERT2, a humanoid robot assistant. Having significant implications for design, results suggest that efficiency is not the most important aspect of performance for users; a personable, expressive robot was found to be preferable over a more efficient one, despite a considerable trade off in time taken to perform the task. Our findings also suggest that a robot exhibiting human-like characteristics may make users reluctant to `hurt its feelings'; they may even lie in order to avoid this.
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Demonstrating appropriate emotions and awareness of error significantly tempers dissatisfaction with a robot's erroneous behavior and improves trust.
“demonstrating appropriate emotions and awareness of error (e.g., regret or enthusiasm) significantly tempers dissatisfaction with a robot's erroneous behavior and improves trust.”
From Understanding and Resolving Failures in Human-Robot Interaction: Literature Review and Model Development (2018) · cites this paper as Hamacher et al., 2016
Cites
Trust in Automation: Designing for Appropriate Reliance
Lee, J. D., & See, K. A. (2004) · Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society · doi:10.1518/hfes.46.1.50_30392 · Cited by 6,605 · cited 1× · see citing works
“It develops in a combination of three interplaying processes: analytic, analog, and affective [20].”
BackgroundA survey of socially interactive robots
Fong, T., Nourbakhsh, I., & Dautenhahn, K. (2003) · Robotics and Autonomous Systems · doi:10.1016/s0921-8890(02)00372-x · Cited by 3,162 · cited 7× · see citing works
“While many studies urge caution in respect of verbal communication in HRI [10], developers of robots for the elderly have found that other methods of communication, such as gesture control or on-screen cues, can be equally problematic for those with infirmities [35].”
BackgroundInfluentialMUIR, B. M., & MORAY, N. (1996) · Ergonomics · doi:10.1080/00140139608964474 · Cited by 993 · see citing works
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Honig, S., & Oron-Gilad, T. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00861 · Cited by 338 · see citing works
Designing emotionally sentient agents
McDuff, D., & Czerwinski, M. (2018) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/3186591 · Cited by 132 · see citing works
Zhang, K., Xie, Y., Chen, D., Ji, Z., & Wang, J. (2025) · BMC Psychology · doi:10.1186/s40359-025-03284-w · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Investigating the Effects of (Empty) Promises on Human-Automation Interaction and Trust Repair
Albayram, Y., Jensen, T., Khan, M. M. H., Fahim, M. A. A., Buck, R., & Coman, E. (2020) · Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction · doi:10.1145/3406499.3415064 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
AI apology: a critical review of apology in AI systems
Harland, H., Dazeley, R., Senaratne, H., Vamplew, P., Cruz, F., & Nakisa, B. (2025) · Artificial Intelligence Review · doi:10.1007/s10462-025-11305-8 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hamacher, A., Bianchi-Berthouze, N., Pipe, A. G., & Eder, K.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- ORCID
- Eder, Kerstin
- Venue
- 2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2016-08
- Pages
- 493-500
- ISSN
- 1944-9437 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2950510190
- Cited by
- 135
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 15.87
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- IEEE RO-MAN (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K006320/1, EP/K006223/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robot Manipulation and Learning
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Keywords
- human-robot interaction, emotional interaction, expressive communication, trust in robots, operational errors, collaborative robotics
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