Effects of gentle and rude vitality forms in social robots on humans during cognitive multitasking

Designing a social humanoid robot to enhance human cognitive multitasking in a mixed human-robot team is anything but straightforward. In fact, the robot’s presence and behavior can either improve or impair human performance. In this study, we examined how different vitality forms—expressed through the robot’s actions, speech and facial expressions—affect cognitive multitasking. Analysis of human facial expressions and skin conductance data revealed that a robot exhibiting a gentle vitality form fostered a more positive and relaxed state than one displaying a rude vitality form. Moreover, the gentle vitality form improved human performance on tasks involving short-term memory and continuous target tracking. To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the long-term impact of vitality forms. Overall, our findings suggest that properly designing a social humanoid robot’s vitality forms can significantly enhance cognitive multitasking performance in human-robot teams.