Anthropomorphic Robots: Form Matters Especially in Case of Failure

In human-robot interaction, the effect of anthropomorphism on trust is an interesting topic for researchers. However, there is still no clear understanding of how an anthropomorphic design affects trust. To address this, we designed a comparative study with a robot with a human-like shape and a technically shaped robot that could perform the same cooperative task. The task was first performed correctly and then with a failure by the robots. In the correct condition, both robots were similarly trusted by the participants. However, in the failure condition, the participants trusted the anthropomorphically shaped robot more. This indicated that only in the case of failure does anthropomorphism affect trust, suggesting that anthropomorphism dampens the dissolution of trust in the case of failure. Future research should consider how different types of manipulations for anthropomorphism or combinations of manipulations affect trust.