Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Error-making Robot Status On Employee Error Tolerance And Acceptance

Along with the continuous iteration of robotics and the rapid development of artificial intelligence,human-robot collaboration has started to be applied in many fields,and it will eventually become an irreversible trend in human society.Human-robot interaction and human-robot collaboration will become the key technology in the era of Industry 4.0,and also become a hot spot for operations management ergonomics research.However,flexible manufacturing under future personalized demand needs to meet the complex and changing external environment as well as the work content that cannot be standardized,and the adaptation of robots to this is a key scientific issue in human-robot collaboration research,in which robots will exhibit unavoidable error making behavior.This can lead to distrust and rejection of robots by users who are unaware of robotics and automation technologies,thus hindering the diffusion and development of robotics.Current research on robot error prevention focuses on the prevention of error,the control of the error environment,and the design of robot behavior after an error,such as trust restoration strategies,with little attention to robot attributes.To address this important issue in the field of human-robot collaboration,this study uses cognitive ergonomics research ideas,based on affective event theory,expectation violation theory,and CASA(Computers as Social Actors)paradigm,to examine the mechanism of the influence of the social attribute of robot status on collaborators’ error tolerance and acceptance from the category of robot’s own attributes.Two studies were conducted in the context of robot error making.Study 1,focused on the mechanistic study of the effect of robot status on team members’ error tolerance.The following four main hypotheses were proposed: 1)Robot status is negatively related to negative attitudes toward the robot and positively related to error tolerance.2)There is an indirect effect of robot status on error tolerance through negative attitudes toward the robot.3)Task goal deviation moderates the negative relationship between robot status and negative attitudes toward the robot.4)Task goal deviation moderates the negative relationship between robot status through negative attitudes toward the robot the indirect effect of negative attitudes toward the robot affecting error tolerance.Study 1 selected two operational variables: robot status(high status,low status)and task goal deviation(high deviation,low deviation)for a 2X2 experimental design,with negative attitude toward the robot as the mediating variable and error tolerance as the dependent variable for model construction.Study 2,focuses on the mechanistic study of the effect of robot status on robot acceptance.The following four hypotheses were proposed: 1)1)Robot status is negatively related to negative emotions and positively related to robot acceptance.2)There is an indirect effect of robot status on robot acceptance through negative emotions.3)Team interdependence moderates the negative relationship between robot status and negative emotions.4)Team interdependence moderates the indirect effect of robot status on robot acceptance through negative emotions.Study 2 selected two operational variables: robot status(high status,low status)and team interdependence(high interdependence,low interdependence)for a 2X2 experimental design.All three operational variables in this study were tested for validity through a pre-experiment.A contextual experimental approach was used in this study to contextualize the application of human-robot collaborative teams in manufacturing companies.The empirical study was conducted by combining the between-group experimental design approach with the subjective perceptions of the questionnaire collection characteristics to test the relevant research hypotheses.A total of 560 students were invited to this study,and 513 valid questionnaires were eventually obtained.The participants in each study were randomly divided into four groups with a gender balance.In the experiment,subjects were asked to watch a video about the robot and textual materials showing the background of the team task,the organization of the team task,and the results of the team task,and to imagine that they were the workers in the materials.During this process,the robot status and variables representing error characteristics and team characteristics were manipulated.The statistical results supported all our hypotheses.In conclusion,the results of this paper not only enrich the study of robot error making,but also provide important practical insights for robot design and use,which are beneficial for advancing the development of human-robot collaboration theory and technology,promoting the practical application of theoretical approaches to human-robot interaction,improving the quality of human-robot collaboration and interaction,and alleviating the pressure of social and economic development.