Investigating Strategies for Robot Persuasion in Social Human-Robot Interaction.

Persuasion is a fundamental aspect of how people interact with each other. As robots become integrated into our daily lives and take on increasingly social roles, their ability to persuade will be critical to their success during human-robot interaction (HRI). In this article, we present a novel HRI study that investigates how a robot's persuasive behavior influences people's decision making. The study consisted of two small social robots trying to influence a person's answer during a jelly bean guessing game. One robot used either an emotional or logical persuasive strategy during the game, while the other robot displayed a neutral control behavior. The results showed that the Emotion strategy had significantly higher persuasive influence compared to both the Logic and Control conditions. With respect to participant demographics, no significant differences in influence were observed between age or gender groups; however, significant differences were observed when considering participant occupation/field of study (FOS). Namely, participants in business, engineering, and physical sciences fields were more influenced by the robots and aligned their answers closer to the robot's suggestion than did those in the life sciences and humanities professions. The discussions provide insight into the potential use of robot persuasion in social HRI task scenarios; in particular, considering the influence that a robot displaying emotional behaviors has when persuading people.

Persuasive robots should avoid authority: The effects of formal and real authority on persuasion in human-robot interaction.

Social robots must take on many roles when interacting with people in everyday settings, some of which may be authoritative, such as a nurse, teacher, or guard. It is important to investigate whether and how authoritative robots can influence people in applications ranging from health care and education to security and in the home. Here, we present a human-robot interaction study that directly investigates the effect of a robot's peer or authority role (formal authority) and control of monetary rewards and penalties (real authority) on its persuasive influence. The study consisted of a social robot attempting to persuade people to change their answers to the robot's suggestion in a series of challenging attention and memory tasks. Our results show that the robot in a peer role was more persuasive than when in an authority role, contrary to expectations from human-human interactions. The robot was also more persuasive when it offered rewards over penalties, suggesting that participants perceived the robot's suggestions as a less risky option than their own estimates, in line with prospect theory. In general, the results show an aversion to the persuasive influence of authoritative robots, potentially due to the robot's legitimacy as an authority figure, its behavior being perceived as dominant, or participant feelings of threatened autonomy. This paper explores the importance of persuasion for robots in different social roles while providing critical insight into the perception of robots in these roles, people's behavior around these robots, and the development of human-robot relationships.

Chronic Disease and Self-Injection: Ethnographic Investigations into the Patient Experience During Treatment.

INTRODUCTION: Drug administration by self-injection provides an option to treat chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Crohn's disease (CD). However, a negative self-injection experience for patients may reduce patient adherence to the recommended treatment regimen. In this study, a holistic approach was used to identify common themes along the treatment pathway and at self-injection that, if changed, could improve patient experience and treatment outcomes. METHODS: Two ethnographic studies were conducted: Field Insights CODE (FI[CODE]) examined the treatment pathway within the context of the experience of living with RA or CD, and Injection Mission 2020 (IM2020) focused on the moment of self-injection. FI(CODE) used an open ethnographic approach to interview 62 patients and 10 healthcare professionals (HCPs) from the US and UK. IM2020 included a review of over 50 injection device design information sources from the sponsor, and interviews with 9 patients, 8 HCPs, and 5 medical device designers from the US, UK, Canada, and Japan. RESULTS: FI(CODE) identified suboptimal treatment practices along the treatment pathway in four key areas: treatment team communication, treatment choice, patient empowerment, and treatment delivery. Patients with more treatment options and greater disease understanding were less likely to struggle with the treatment process. IM2020 demonstrated that five related components influenced the self-injection experience: delivery process, emotional state, social perception, educational level, and ritualization of the self-injection process. CONCLUSION: These analyses highlight several potential areas for improvement, including aligning the device more to patients' needs to improve treatment adherence, better accessibility to educational resources to increase patient disease understanding, and guidance to empower patients to develop an optimal personalized self-injection ritual. FUNDING: UCB Pharma.

Some medicines used to treat long-term conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn's disease, are injected under the skin. Often, patients can choose to inject medicines themselves (self-injection). This must be done correctly for the medicines to work properly. But, the training surrounding self-injection is uneven and often cannot address the fundamental problems facing all self-injecting patients.What healthcare improvements could help patients self-inject successfully? To find out, we interviewed people living with rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn's disease, while others were doctors, nurses, and people who design injection devices.We found four common problems in the overall healthcare that patients received:1.There were communication problems between different healthcare professionals and between healthcare professionals and patients, for example about treatment options or goals.2.Each level in the healthcare system (e.g., the nurse, doctor, hospital board, health insurance company) made decisions that limited how many treatment options were presented to patients for consideration.3.Patients were not empowered, as they felt they lacked personal input, information, and control in treatment decisions.4.Healthcare professionals focused on disease treatment but not patient experience; they did not fully explain how to perform injections (delivery), leaving patients to figure it out by trial and error. In addition, five factors were identified that affected patients' experiences of self-injection:1.Process of injection: minimal one-on-one instruction for self-injection left some patients anxious and more prone to mistakes.2.Emotions: some patients were better than others at 'overriding' emotions (e.g., fear) when self-injecting.3.Views on injections: there was negative social stigma around injections, but patients had greater trust in more technological, modern devices.4.Education: doctors often failed to explain how to manage fear and anxiety.5.Developing a ritual: patients with a ritualized routine for when, where, and how to self-inject were more confident. If doctors and nurses can support patients by providing a greater choice of treatments and injection devices, and teaching more about self-injection, this could improve patients' experiences and allow medications to work better. Healthcare professionals should help patients to develop their own, optimal routine for self-injection.