Imagination vs. Reality: Investigating the Acceptance and Preferred Anthropomorphism in Service HRI

While the use of robots in public spaces is increasing, still few studies explore the resulting everyday human-robot interactions (HRI). The present study sought to bridge the disparity between real-world interactions and the frequently examined hypothetical interactions. To do so, we investigate the imagined and actual interaction with an ice cream serving robot. In two studies and an exploratory study comparison, we examined user acceptance and preference for the degree of anthropomorphic appearance. Although a typical human service task was taken over by a robot, an industrial robot was preferred according to participants' ratings in both studies. Moreover, both studies demonstrated that robot enthusiasm significantly relates to participants' acceptance of the robot for the task. Besides these commonalities, the results showed also that while humans were preferred over robots in the imagined setting, no clear preference was found in the real-life setting. Additional analyses compared the free text answers of the two studies and provided insights into participants' general attitudes toward robots in the workforce. In line with the higher preferences for humans over robots in the imagined setting, considerably more participants mentioned a better customer experience with humans as important in the imagined study compared to the participants who interacted with the robot. The studies strikingly demonstrated that imaginary settings yield similar outcomes to those where participants physically engage with the robot in certain aspects, such as their preference for anthropomorphism. However, this phenomenon does not appear to hold for other facets, such as their favored service agent.