Investigating Disclosure of Personal Information to Robots as a Function of Robot Appearance and Level of Self-Disclosure

Abstract

Human-robot interaction consists of a rich set of behaviors between humans and robots often requiring the exchange of personal and sensitive information between them. From a conceptual framework this paper discusses whether a robot who self-discloses personal information when conversing with a user will prompt the user to reciprocate and self-disclose personal and sensitive information to the robot. Additionally, the paper discusses various factors which may influence whether self-disclosure of personal information between human and robot occurs and briefly discusses aspects of a conceptual representational system necessary for HRI enabling the robot to self-disclose to a user.