Is robot telepathy acceptable? Investigating effects of nonverbal robot-robot communication on human-robot interaction

Recent research indicates that other factors in addition to appearance may contribute to the “Uncanny Valley” effect, and it is possible that “uncanny actions” such as “robot telepathy” - the nonverbal exchange of information among multiple robots - could be one such factor. We thus specifically examine whether humans are negatively affected by displays of nonverbal robot-robot communication through a disaster relief scenario in which one robot must relay information from a human participant to another robot in order to successfully complete a task. Our results showed no significant difference between the verbal and nonverbal communication strategies, thus suggesting that “telepathic information transmission” is acceptable. However, we also found several unexplained robot-specific effects, prompting future follow-up studies to determine their causes and the extent to which these effects might impact human perception and acceptance of robot communication strategies.