Virtual Trust

Enter Nexi, a robot especially designed to mimic human expressiveness. In the second phase of the study, it replaced one of the partners in each pair. The human partner had a 10-minute “conversation” with Nexi, again about mundane topics. The scientists meanwhile operated Nexi in Wizard of Oz fashion, making it lean back, touch its face and hands, and cross its arms. All Nexi's cues were derived from examples of human motion to make them as authentic as possible. The order varied, with some cues repeated, to simulate human fidgeting.

Other volunteers also chatted with Nexi for 10 minutes, but during these conversations Nexi used gestures other than the target movements. As reported in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, when Nexi used the target gestures—but not when it made other humanlike movements—the volunteers reported feelings of distrust toward the robot. What's more, when they played the economic exchange game with Nexi, these volunteers expected to be treated poorly and behaved less cooperatively with the robot.

Interestingly, these results were narrowly focused on trust. That is, even when Nexi's body language made people skeptical of its motives, the study participants did not necessarily dislike it, according to their subsequent reports of their feelings toward it. This is a familiar human experience: many of us know individuals whom we like well enough but would never, ever trust with our money.

This article was originally published with the title How to Spot a Scoundrel.

(Further Reading)

Detecting the Trustworthiness of Novel Partners in Economic Exchange. David DeSteno, Cynthia Breazeal, Robert H. Frank, David Pizarro, Jolie Baumann, Leah Dickens and Jin Joo Lee in Psychological Science (in press).

4 Comments

1. 1. Acoyauh2 11:12 AM 8/23/12

   Meh. Looks almost like those 'spot if he's cheating' articles/tests in Cosmo and their ilk.
   I know Psychchology is not an exact science - some say hardly a science at all - but even by this standard the study seems very, very iffy to me... NOT SA material at all
   

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2. 2. brublr 07:03 PM 8/23/12

   And now, just in time for the election! Our next modern miracle! The absolutely free, downloadable, 96% accurate Lie Detector app, "Who's your Daddy?" for Android, iPad
   or Mobile. Just who's selling 'what for" and for 'why'? Works on your television screen or radio's politicos and/or idols! In Person or Telepresense! Do you doubt everyone around you? Maybe you should! And "Who's your Daddy?' will show you why!

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3. 3. rbsmall 05:33 PM 8/29/12

   I would accept only, the one on one, interview as the best measuring mode, especially for the physical eye, hand, head motions, and voice inflections. Other than a trained actor would show some negative sign.

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4. 4. bucketofsquid 06:03 PM 8/30/12

   Every few years some scammer comes out with a book on how to discern the dishonest. They are invariably proven to be wildly inaccurate.

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