ABSTRACT

Despite the pervasiveness of service robots in hospitality industry, it is unclear how highly human-like service robots elicit aversive effect on consumers’ use intention in addition to discomfort and when the aversive effect can be mitigated. Three experimental studies were conducted, showing that highly human-like service robots elicit greater consumer discomfort and decrease task attraction toward robots, in turn weakening consumers’ use interaction. Moreover, this research identified that emotional-social tasks (vs. mechanical tasks) mitigated the aversive effects of highly human-like service robots on consumers’ responses. The research extends the uncanny valley and mind perception theories and offers some guidelines for employing service robots with different degree of anthropomorphism.

摘要

尽管服务机器人在酒店业中普遍存在，但目前尚不清楚高度类人的服务机器人除了不适感之外，对消费者的使用意图产生了怎样的厌恶作用，以及何时可以减轻厌恶作用。进行了三项实验研究，表明高度类人的服务机器人会引起更大的消费者不适并降低对机器人的任务吸引力，从而削弱消费者的使用互动。此外，这项研究发现，情感社交任务（与机械任务相比）减轻了高度类人服务机器人对消费者反应的厌恶影响。该研究扩展了恐怖谷和心灵感知理论，并为使用具有不同拟人化程度的服务机器人提供了一些指导。