Robots and Uncertainty: An investigation into the impact of the aesthetic visualisation on people’s trust of robots

Human senses have evolved to pick-up on sensory cues. Beyond our perception, they play an integral role in our emotional processing, learning, and interpretation. They are what help us to sculpt our everyday experiences and can be triggered by aesthetics to form the foundations of our interactions with each other and our surroundings. Aesthetics, described by the ancient Greeks as sensation, is the ability to receive stimulation from one or more of our five bodily senses. In terms of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), robots also have the ‘potential’ senses to interact with the environment and people around them. They can offer an ‘embodiment’ that has the potential to make the interaction with technology a more natural, engaging, and acceptable experience. However, for many reasons, people still do not seem to trust and accept robots. This paper explores that robots have unique opportunities to improve their facilities for empathy, emotion, and social awareness beyond their more cognitive functionalities. By applying various different design elements to design of the human robotic interaction, we have revealed that certain facial aesthetics seem to be more trustworthy than others (cartoon face versus human face etc) and also certain visual variables (i.e. blur) afforded uncertainty more so than others. Consequentially, this paper reports uncertainties in and between the visualisations greatly influenced participants willingness to accept and trust the robot. By understanding what aesthetic elements initiate what affective processes, this paper further enriches our knowledge of how we might design for certain emotions, feelings and ultimately more socially acceptable and trusting robotic experiences.