Can Facial Expressions Make You Trust Robots? This Question Is Answered

Would you believe it when you heard that you would have a robot maid at home and another robot would treat you in a hospital? Technology is advancing at a dizzying pace, and robots with facial expressions on them have already started to take place in our lives. Then, the provoking question is how we will trust them.

A robot called “Pepper” was developed by a Japanese telecommunications giant Softbank. Pepper is the first robot in the world that reads emotions, and robots are already situated in hospitals to revolutionize complex procedures with high precision and even care homes with a role to reduce the stress of loneliness, according to an article published on The Conversation.

Apparently, a period when robots will take more place in our lives is not far away. The crucial point is the matter of trust in this case. An investigation conducted by Joel Pinney, PhD candidate in data visualization, robotics, and creative computing of Cardiff Metropolitan University, revealed that only 31% of participants involved in the research said they would trust a robot doctor in daily life.

“To establish how to build a robot that exuded trustworthiness, I began to look into a range of facial expressions, designs, and modifications to the Canbot-U03 robot,” said Pinney. “Once I’d found my robot, I decided to incorporate psychological research which has suggested that facial expressions can help to determine trustworthiness. Smiling indicates a trusting nature while angry expressions are associated with dishonesty, for example.”

The Conversation

What the participants think of facial expressions on robots

According to the research, people said they would trust those robots with smiling faces on them while distorted and angry faces were not accepted due to their unreliability. What makes the research interesting is that 86 of the participants disliked the appearance of a robot with human eyes. Pinney pointed out that requests of the participants concerning a robot included “a face, a mouth, and eyes but – crucially – not an identical representation of human features.” That is to say, they are still in favor of a robot, but not a worrisome one.

“These findings align with a phenomenon called the ‘uncanny valley’ which states that we accept robots with a human likeness – but only up to a certain point,” according to Pinney. “Once we cross this point, and the robot looks too human, our acceptance of it can swiftly go from positive to negative.”