Judging robot ability: How people form implicit and explicit impressions of robot competence.

Robots' proliferation throughout society offers many opportunities and conveniences. However, our ability to effectively employ these machines relies heavily on our perceptions of their competence. In six studies (N = 2,660), participants played a competitive game with a robot to learn about its capabilities.

Stingy bots can improve human welfare in experimental sharing networks.

Machines powered by artificial intelligence increasingly permeate social networks with control over resources. However, machine allocation behavior might offer little benefit to human welfare over networks when it ignores the specific network mechanism of social exchange. Here, we perform an online experiment involving simple networks of humans (496 participants in 120 networks) playing a resource-sharing game to which we sometimes add artificial agents (bots).

Artificial intelligence in communication impacts language and social relationships.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already widely used in daily communication, but despite concerns about AI's negative effects on society the social consequences of using it to communicate remain largely unexplored. We investigate the social consequences of one of the most pervasive AI applications, algorithmic response suggestions ("smart replies"), which are used to send billions of messages each day. Two randomized experiments provide evidence that these types of algorithmic recommender systems change how people interact with and perceive one another in both pro-social and anti-social ways.

Using Smartphone Sensor Data to Assess Inhibitory Control in the Wild: Longitudinal Study.

Background: Inhibitory control, or inhibition, is one of the core executive functions of humans. It contributes to our attention, performance, and physical and mental well-being. Our inhibitory control is modulated by various factors and therefore fluctuates over time.

Understanding the Uncanny: Both Atypical Features and Category Ambiguity Provoke Aversion toward Humanlike Robots.

Robots intended for social contexts are often designed with explicit humanlike attributes in order to facilitate their reception by (and communication with) people. However, observation of an "uncanny valley"-a phenomenon in which highly humanlike entities provoke in human observers-has lead some to caution against this practice. Both of these contrasting perspectives on the anthropomorphic design of social robots find some support in empirical investigations to date.

EmotionCheck:: A Wearable Device to Regulate Anxiety through False Heart Rate Feedback.

Previous studies indicate that the way we perceive our bodily signals, such as our heart rate, can influence how we feel. Inspired by these studies, we built EmotionCheck, which is a wearable device that can change users' perception of their heart rate through subtle vibrations on the wrist. The results of an experiment with 67 participants show that the EmotionCheck device can help users regulate their anxiety through false feedback of a slow heart rate.

Mindless Computing: Designing Technologies to Subtly Influence Behavior.

Persuasive technologies aim to influence user's behaviors. In order to be effective, many of the persuasive technologies de-veloped so far relies on user's motivation and ability, which is highly variable and often the reason behind the failure of such technology. In this paper, we present the concept of Mindless Computing, which is a new approach to persuasive technology design.