Do the robots affect us with laziness?

Collection: Scientific reports

Scientists have found that humans are less concerned with the tasks they do when they know that the robot has already examined their work.

Current research conducted by scientists at Berlin Technical University in Germany has examined whether the phenomenon of “laziness” in which people make less effort in group environments because they feel that their contribution to work is not considered by human and robot interactions.

The main scientist of the study said in a media statement that teamwork is a combination of work, working together can motivate people to perform well and can also lead to motivation because individual participation is not so visible. We were interested in finding out that such motivational effects would be visible when a group partner is a robot.

To test their theory, the researchers asked four participants to examine the defects of the circuit. The images were only clear when the computer mouse was placed on it and allowed the group to monitor the attention of the participants to the details.

Half of these participants were informed that their circuit boards were previously inspected by a robot named Panda, where people could see the robot and hear the sounds.

Although the preliminary results did not show a significant difference during the period when both groups did not deepen the board or areas of study, those who believed that they were working after the Panda review later identified fewer defects. This indicates the effect of “but does not see” in which people are mentally involved because of over -relying on another creature.

“It is easy to track where the person looks at, but it is much harder to determine whether this visual information is processed sufficiently,” says Dr. Linda Onas, a senior researcher.

Although the participants felt that they maintained a stable attention level, they unconsciously thought that the Panda had ignored any defects.

“In longer shifts, when the tasks are routine and the workplace provides little monitoring and feedback, it is much more motivation to lose,” says Unash says. “In general, this can have a negative impact on the results of the work, especially in the areas of safety related to safety -related areas where double survey is common.”

These findings also point to the challenges of accurate social behavior simulation in laboratory environments, given that participants are aware of the monitoring.

To understand how big the problem of losing motivation in human and robot interaction is, we must enter the field and test our assumptions in real workplaces, with skilled workers who typically do their job in groups of robots.

The results of this study are published in the magazine in Robotics and AI.