Social Logistics Robot in Healthcare Facilities: Influence of Presenting the Robot as a Subject Versus an Object with Expressive Variations

This research investigates the influence of: 1) the presentation of a service robot in healthcare facilities by a third party: how is the user's perception modified by the presentation of the robot as a machine or as a subject? 2) variations in the robot's degree of expressiveness. How is the user's perception modified according to whether the robot has a low or high degree of expressiveness? The study was structured in two steps: The first step was an online survey to measure and verify user perception (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N=38</tex>) of a virtual agent that mimics robot expressions limited to the head presented in short videos. The second step was a quasi-experimental study in a hospital to analyze the perception of healthcare professionals (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N=30</tex>) of a robot that embedded the virtual agent previously studied. This robot was presented as an object (a machine) or as a subject, with either a low or a high degree of expressiveness (low or high amplitude of movements for the head and the facial features studied in the first step). Thirteen results highlight the influence of the robot's initial presentation: for example, a robot presented as a subject with a high degree of expressiveness seems to be perceived as more flexible, inspiring more trust, seeming less self-confident and more reassuring, whereas the same robot still presented as a subject but less expressive appears more fragile.