Abdulrahem Al Abri Undergraduate Dissertation 2014/15

Could a robot make you more trusting?

Supervised by A.Sharkey

Abstract

This project aims to invistigate the public attitudes towards robots in Arab Gulf countries and to invistigate whether Paro robot affects individul's generosity levels.METHODS: the public attitude survey was conducted using an online survey and the findings are analysed as an average of the AG countries. Moreover, the survey findings are compared with the findings of the Euroup Union survey. The potential effect of Paro robot on the individul's generosity levels was measured by an online experiment and a lab experiment. Abefore-and-after methodology was used in both experiments and the findings were measued statically using paired t-test and Welch's t-test. RESULTS: the public attitudes survey reveals that most of AG citizens are intersted in science and technology. Additionally, they think robots should not be used in human areas but they support using robots in dangrous areas and in difficult environments. However, most of them think using robots will not be common in the AG in the near future. Paired t-test proved that watching or interacting with Paro robot increases generosity levels and Welch's proved that there is a statically significant difference between interacting with Paro robot and interacting with Lego robot. However, it proved that there is no statically siginficant difference between watching a video of Paro and watching a video of Lego robot. CONCLUSTION: AG citizens have a positive view of robots. Generosity level increases by watching (p = 0.02905) or interacting with Paro robot (p = 0.0108). Affacting generosity levels is a unique feature caused by interacting with Paro robot (p = 0.0001) but not by interacting with a Lego robot.