Matching robot appearance and behavior to tasks to improve human-robot cooperation

A robot´s appearance and behavior provide cues to the robot´s abilities and propensities. We hypothesize that an appropriate match between a robot´s social cues and its task improve the people´s acceptance of and cooperation with the robot. In an experiment, people systematically preferred robots for jobs when the robot´s humanlikeness matched the sociability required in those jobs. In two other experiments, people complied more with a robot whose demeanor matched the seriousness of the task.