Science & tech · 2023
Can eyes on a robot increase reported trust but make working together less comfortable in VR?
Yes—that was the pattern in a virtual reality experiment. Participants gave slightly higher trust ratings to robots with eyes on their displays than to otherwise same-type robots without eyes, but pupil size and task completion time suggested less comfortable collaboration. Those measurements are indirect indicators, not proof of how participants felt.
Details
Researchers used simple collaboration scenes in virtual reality to test whether adding eyes to a robot changes human trust. They varied both the distance to the robot and whether its display showed eyes, comparing robots of the same type.
The key finding was a mismatch: participants reported slightly more trust in robots with eyes, while measurements including pupil size and task completion time were interpreted as signs of less comfortable collaboration. Higher reported trust therefore did not align with the other measured responses.
The abstract does not give the participant count, numerical results, statistical uncertainty, or separate results for distance. It also does not say whether task completion became faster or slower. The finding concerns simple VR collaboration, not demonstrated effects of eyes on physical robots in real workplaces.
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