Effects of Prior Robot Experience, Speed, and Proximity on Psychosocial Reactions to a Soft Growing Robot.

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONSAfter viewing video vignettes of human interactions with a novel soft growing robot, we found that participants reported fewer perceived safety hazards, less anxiety and fear about robots, reduced social hesitancy about human-robot collaboration (HRC), and lower technology-induced fears of job insecurity. Unlike prior research with traditional rigid manipulators, we found that the manipulated proximity of the human-robot interactions was unrelated to any of these outcomes, suggesting closer interactions may be possible without adverse psychological resistance. On the other hand, fear of robots, perceived hazards, technology-induced job insecurity, and robot anxiety were all significantly lower when human-robot interactions were slower.