Explicit, Neutral, or Implicit: A Cross-cultural Exploration of Communication-style Preferences in Human Robot Interaction.

Social groups have different rules and preferences for what they consider acceptable behavior and a social behavior that is favorable in a certain cultural context may be unacceptable in another. In this study, we evaluate the effects of robot communication style on how participants from two distinct cultures (Indian and American) perceive them; the robots use or violate cultural norms. We recruited participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk to watch a short video of three humanoid robots interacting, and explore the impact of this difference on how participants perceive robot appropriateness for a range of tasks. Results indicate an association between participant culture and their preferred robot communication style for the task of older adult care.