Investigation of the Joint Simon Effect with Human, Robot, and Computer Interface Task Partners: A Pilot Study

This pilot study assessed whether there are fundamental differences in how people perceive human and nonhuman task partners using a joint Simon task. Fourteen participants completed the task with human, robot, and computer task partners. Results showed no joint Simon effect for any task partner, and the robot and computer were both perceived as not very humanlike. However, while the robot was seen as less accurate and slower than the human task partner, the computer was consistently viewed as more accurate and faster. This indicates that there may be differences in user’s perceptions of different types of technological task partners, and that for certain tasks, robots may be seen as inferior while computers are viewed as superior.