Here’s Saunderson in the role of experimenter…and participant.So, what’s your initial guess?Um, I’ll go with row 6 column 1.Ok, and Pepper, what do you think?I actually think that we’re in row 7 and column 1.In the other half of the tasks, Pepper runs the show.So Pepper was alone in the room with the participant.It was Pepper’s study, Pepper saying, you know, welcome to my study.Please take a seat at the chair in front of you and we’ll get started.My name is Pepper and I’d like you to join me.The tasks were the same…tests that challenge attention and memory.But this time, it was Pepper the Experimenter…Dr. Pepper, perhaps... offering the suggestion after the person made an initial guess.Personally I counted seven police stations.Now, what is the final guess you would like to lock in?And what Saunderson found was that Pepper had better luck at getting people to change their response when acting as a fellow test-taker, not as a leader.Now, that could be because participants didn’t view the robot as being a legitimate authority figure.Or because there’s something deeply creepy about a bossy robot…especially one that reminds you that your winnings will be docked if your answers are incorrect.It made people seemingly very uncomfortable with this idea of a robot not only in charge but using that authority in a slightly negative way.And some were more bothered than others.Everyone didn’t love the sort of dominant nature of the robot, but men in particular were very uncomfortable and seemingly had their sense of autonomy or status threatened by this cute little four foot-tall robot.
