The role of social context in human-robot interaction

Users´ experience of interacting with a robot is mediated by the context that characterizes the co-existence of the human and the robot. However, it has been difficult to study the role of social context in human-robot interaction (HRI) in experimental settings. In this research, we evaluated how social context influenced user acceptance of social robots in a controlled experiment. Using video scenarios with low- and high-level of contextual information, we examined the role of social context in modulating user acceptance. We found that user acceptance of the robot was contingent on the social context, and that information related to social context influenced the amount of user feedback generated by the users concerning the characteristics of social robots.