No fair!!: An interaction with a cheating robot

Abstract

Abstract—Using a humanoid robot and a simple children’s game, we examine the degree to which variations in behavior result in attributions of mental state and intentionality. Partici-pants play the well-known children’s game “rock-paper-scissors” against a robot that either plays fairly, or that cheats in one of two ways. In the “verbal cheat ” condition, the robot announces the wrong outcome on several rounds which it loses, declaring itself the winner. In the “action cheat ” condition, the robot changes its gesture after seeing its opponent’s play. We find that participants display a greater level of social engagement and make greater attributions of mental state when playing against the robot in the conditions in which it cheats. Index Terms—Affective & emotional responses, Beliefs about robots, Mental models of robot behavior I.