Robots That Use Physical Repair Strategies After Repeated Errors to Mitigate Trust Decline in Human-Robot Interaction: A Repeated Measures Experiment

Robots are inherently imperfect, and collaborating with an error-prone robotic teammate can deteriorate perceptions of trust and the willingness of users to continue working with the robot. Evidence-based trust repair strategies can be implemented into a robot’s design to mitigate the decline of trust in human-robot relationships following errors. It is not yet clear what trust repair strategies are most effective. To address this shortcoming, this study investigates two novel trust repair strategies: offered and automatic physical repair. A between-subjects repeated measures study was performed to determine the extent to which each type of physical trust repair was successful in restoring participants’ perceptions of trust. The results indicated that, where the no-repair condition experienced a significant decrease in trust score, only the automatic repair was consistently successful in bypassing the trust decline. Detailed analysis showed that participants from the offered repair condition did not view the robot as providing the appropriate information, meaning that the offer itself may have confused them. Participants’ response rate to the MultiDimensional Measure of Trust also revealed that users were less willing to associate moral terms with robotic teammates, though this hesitancy may reduce over time. These results contribute to research on human-robot trust repair by uncovering that physical repair is effective when it is automatic, but not when it is offered. This finding will help to further elucidate what repair strategies work to mitigate trust decline and thus help inform robot design.