As future robots become more prevalent amongst people’s lives, many of them are expected to help us make decisions in daily life. We imagine that there will be times in which a robot and a human will give different advice. Thus, in this project we seek to answer the following questions: in what situations will a person obey a robot rather than a human? How does working with a robot affect people's understanding of the morality of their decisions? We expect the results of our experimental studies to inform the future design of robots that can assist people in their daily lives. This project is made possible by funding from the CRA-W CREU (Computing Research Association's Committee for the Status of Women Computing Research Experience for Undergraduates) program.

Study 1: In past experiments, people were shown to obey other people over robots. We hypothesize that this can be manipulated if we change the person’s level of authority and the robot’s in-group membership.

Study 2: Previous studies have shown that robots in groups affect people differently than individual robots. We are interested in how groups of robots and humans collaborate on moral decision-making (e.g. swerving to avoid hitting multiple people but hitting one person).

RESEARCH TEAM:

Catherine Sembroski is a senior studying informatics with a concentration in cognitive science and a minor in French. In previous years, she has assisted with studies examining when robots act as group members, both with humans and with other robots. This year, her independent research examines robots, authority, and in-group interactions. When not working with robots, she enjoys painting and rotting her brain with bad movies.

Margaret Krupp is a junior studying Psychology with a minor in Human-Centered Computing. Her research examines the way that people behave differently around groups of robots as opposed to individual robots. She has examined this in relation to human-robot collaboration as well as the moral framework that people apply to robot groups versus individuals. Margaret has also done some work in Privacy and Telepresence. Margaret is also a television enthusiast who also enjoys dancing and camping trips.

Anne Lin is a sophomore at Indiana University studying Cognitive Science. This is her second year working with the R-house. When she is not working on lab stuff, she is most likely either listening to the NPR or zoning out.

Marlena Fraune is a Ph.D. Candidate in Cognitive Science and Psychology at Indiana University. Her research explores how groups and inter-group dynamics affect social human-robot interaction across cultures.

Selma Šabanović is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing and the Cognitive Science Program at Indiana University. She is the founder and director of the R-House Lab for the Study of Human-Robot Interaction. Her research combines the social studies of computing, focusing particularly on the design, use, and consequences of socially interactive and assistive robots in different social and cultural contexts, with research on human-robot interaction (HRI) and social robot design. Selma spent Summer 2014 as a Visiting Professor at Bielefeld University's Cluster of Excellence in Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), was a lecturer in Stanford University's Program in Science, Technology and Society in 2008/2009, and a visiting scholar at the Intelligent Systems Institute in AIST, Tsukuba, Japan and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. She received her PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007. When not working on robots, she enjoys, reading, cooking, gardening, and hanging out with her daughter.