FIDES: How Emotions and Small Talks May Influence Trust in an Embodied vs. Non-embodied Robot

Trust is known as a complex social-emotional concept and its formation is highly affected by non-verbal behavior. Social robots, as any other social entities, are supposed to maintain a level of trustworthiness during their interactions with humans. In this sense, we have examined the influence of a set of factors, including emotional representation, performing small talk and embodiment, on the way people infer trustworthiness of a robot. To examine these factors, we have performed different experiments using two robots, NAO and Emys, with and without physical embodiment respectively. To measure trust levels, we assumed two different metrics, a trust questionnaire and the amount of donations the participants would make. The results suggest that these factors influence significantly the level of trust. As, people tend to trust on Emys significantly differently depending on its facial expressions and making or not making small talk, and, people tend to donate differently to NAO when it is performing different emotional gestures and making or not making small talk. Furthermore, the trust levels were significantly different regarding the embodiment, comparing the experiments with Emys versus with NAO.