“It's not Paul, it's a robot”: The impact of linguistic framing and the evolution of trust and distrust in a collaborative robot during a human-robot interaction

An appropriate level of human-robot trust is widely acknowledged as a crucial factor for successful human-robot interaction (HRI). Previous research has addressed anthropomorphic design but mostly neglected linguistic framing as a means to influence trust by altering the perceived human-likeness of a robot. Similarly, time-dependant patterns of trust and distrust during an HRI have rarely been investigated, hindering the development of a coherent theoretical framework on framing effects, their formation conditions, and their relation to trust and distrust evolution in the HRI context. A previous online study suggested that linguistic framing modulates inexperienced factory workers’ trust in a collaborative robot at the workplace. This article presents a follow-up study with a sample of students and an realistic HRI setting. Despite using similar framing stimuli, the study failed to replicate significant framing effects on trust, suggesting their context-sensitivity and dependence on individual characteristics of the recipients of the framing. Additionally, a significant increase in trust and decrease in distrust during the HRI highlights the need for time-dependant considerations. The results call for a more fine-grained investigation of linguistic framing effects as well as of trust and distrust evolution in order to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework applicable to the HRI context.