The influence of a robot's embodiment on trust: A longitudinal study

Trust, taken from the human perspective, is an essential factor that determines the use of robots as companions or care robots, especially given the long-term character of the interaction. This study investigated the influence of a robot's embodiment on people's trust over a prolonged period of time. The participants engaged in a collaborative task either with a physical robot or a virtual agent in 10 sessions spread over a period of 6 weeks. While our results showed that the level of trust was not influenced by the type of embodiment, time here was an important factor showing a significant increase in user's trust. Our results raise new questions on the role of the embodiment in trust and contribute to the growing research in the area of trust in human-robot interaction.