Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Open Access Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Computer Science (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Computer Science

Advisor 1

Michael Walker

Committee Member 1

Amna Mazen

Committee Member 2

Vinh Nguyen

Committee Member 3

Keith Vertanen

Abstract

Failures in multi robot systems raise questions about whether changes in trust and judgments of responsibility remain specific to the robot that failed or extend to the broader team. We research how robot identity shapes these judgments by comparing three robot bodies presented either as one agent with a shared identity or as three agents with independent identities. In a virtual reality study, 24 participants observed the robots perform a colored objects sorting task in which one robot made an error and later completed the task successfully. Participants assessed their trust in each robot before the sorting task, after one robot failed during the first phase, and after that robot successfully recovered during the second phase. Following recovery, trust in the non-failing robots increased more under the shared identity condition than under the independent identity condition, while trust recovery for the failing robot did not differ between conditions. Participants also assigned greater system-level responsibility under shared identity. These findings reveal a key design tradeoff in multi-robot systems: presenting robots as a single agent can allow successful performance to strengthen trust across the team, but it can also distribute responsibility for an individual robot’s failure more broadly. In contrast, independent identities may keep both trust and responsibility more closely tied to the performance of each robot.

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Available for download on Saturday, March 13, 2027

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