Competing with or against cozmo, the robot: Influence of interaction context and outcome on mind perception

With the rise of integration of robots in our daily lives, people find their own ways of normalizing their interaction with artificial agents, one of which is attributing mind to them. Research has shown that attributing mind to an artificial agent improves the flow of the interaction and alters behavior following it. However, little is known about the the influence of the interaction context and the outcome of the interaction. Addressing this gap in the literature, we explored the influence of the Interaction Context (cooperation vs. competition) and Outcome (win vs. lose) on the attributed levels of mind to an artificial agent. To that end, we used an interactive game that consisted of trivia questions between teams of human participants and the robot Cozmo. We found that in the cooperation condition, those who lost as a team ascribed greater levels of mind to the agent compared to those who won as a team. However, participants who competed with and won against the robot attributed greater levels of mind to the agent compared to those who cooperated and won as a team. These results suggest that people attribute mind to artificial agents in a self-serving way, depending on the interaction context and outcome.