Say it with Confidence: Shaping Trust in a Deceptive Robot

Abstract

While the term may carry negative connotations, robot deception has been shown to elicit beneficial behavioural changes in people when trust is established. This study investigates trust and deception in human-robot interactions, focusing on how individuals recognize and respond to multimodal deceptive behaviours in a robot. In particular, we believe that a robot's confidence can positively influence people's trust and perception, even in the presence of contradictory deceptive behaviour. Eighty participants engaged in a Treasure Hunt game with a deceptive robot across four conditions. Results show that people tend to overtrust robots even when contradictions are detected, though trusting behaviours varied with confidence level. A low confidence induced participants to identify the contradiction as programming error, or a corrective action taken by the robot rather than intentional deceit. Medium confidence caused participants to doubt their own memory and interpret the robot's behaviour as human-like rather than deceptive. High confidence led participants to acknowledge contradictions yet still comply with the robot's instructions.