The Impact of Affective Verbal Expressions in Social Robots

This research investigates whether there is an ethical concern in robots misrepresenting their internal state through speech. Participants were asked to discuss their food preferences with a robot, where the robot would either respond through facts or an implied personal stance. Results show that there are no significant differences in the way participants perceived the robot or accepted the interaction; nor that the interaction influenced their mood. This indicates that the use of personal opinion by a robot does not significantly impact participants' opinion of the robot and therefore may not necessarily be a concern in human-robot interactions.