Socially engaging robots have been increasingly applied to alleviate depressive symptoms and to improve the quality of social life among different populations. Seeing that depression negatively influences social reward processing in everyday interaction, we investigate this influence during simulated interactions with humans or robots. In this study, 35 participants with mild depression and 35 controls (all from nonclinical populations) finished the social incentive delay task with event-related potential recording, in which they received performance feedback from other persons or from a robot. Compared to the controls, the mild depressive symptom (MDS) group represented abnormalities of social reward processing in the human feedback condition: first, the MDS group showed a lower hit rate and a smaller contingent-negative variation (correlated with each other) during reward anticipation; second, depression level modulated both the early phase (indexed by the feedback-related negativity (FRN)) and the late phase (indexed by the P3) of reward consumption. In contrast, the effect of depression was evident only on FRN amplitude in the robot feedback condition. We suggest that compared to human–human interaction, the rewarding properties of human–robot interaction are less likely to be affected by depression. These findings have implications for the utilization of robot-assisted intervention in clinical practice.

参与社交的机器人越来越多地应用于缓解抑郁症状和提高不同人群的社交生活质量。看到抑郁症对日常互动中的社会奖励处理产生负面影响，我们在与人类或机器人的模拟互动中调查了这种影响。在这项研究中，35 名轻度抑郁症参与者和 35 名对照者（均来自非临床人群）通过事件相关电位记录完成了社会激励延迟任务，其中他们收到了其他人或机器人的表现反馈。与对照组相比，轻度抑郁症状 (MDS) 组代表了人类反馈条件下社会奖励处理的异常：首先，MDS 组在奖励预期中表现出较低的命中率和较小的偶然负变化（彼此相关）；其次，抑郁水平调节了奖励消费的早期阶段（由反馈相关的负性 (FRN) 索引）和晚期阶段（由 P3 索引）。相比之下，在机器人反馈条件下，抑郁的影响仅对 FRN 幅度明显。我们认为，与人与人的互动相比，人与机器人互动的奖励特性不太可能受到抑郁症的影响。这些发现对机器人辅助干预在临床实践中的应用具有重要意义。抑郁水平调节了奖励消费的早期阶段（由反馈相关的负性 (FRN) 索引）和晚期阶段（由 P3 索引）。相比之下，在机器人反馈条件下，抑郁的影响仅对 FRN 幅度明显。我们认为，与人与人的互动相比，人与机器人互动的奖励特性不太可能受到抑郁症的影响。这些发现对机器人辅助干预在临床实践中的应用具有重要意义。抑郁水平调节了奖励消费的早期阶段（由反馈相关的负性 (FRN) 索引）和晚期阶段（由 P3 索引）。相比之下，在机器人反馈条件下，抑郁的影响仅对 FRN 幅度明显。我们认为，与人与人的互动相比，人与机器人互动的奖励特性不太可能受到抑郁症的影响。这些发现对机器人辅助干预在临床实践中的应用具有重要意义。