As clothing has a high impact on human-human interactions (HHI), the influence of robot clothing was tested in exploratory experiments with Softbank’s Pepper robot acting as a persuasive agent in decision tasks.

The experimental design included three conditions: an unclothed robot, a clothed robot, and a clothed robot with self-knowledge about its role and appearance. Persuasion effectiveness and participants’ perception were measured through decision outcomes, participant questionnaires, and qualitative interviews.

The findings suggested that ASR clothing does not significantly impact persuasion effectiveness, despite participants’ perceptions that robot clothing influences trust, liking, and acceptance. In contrast, self-knowledge was found to enhance the ASR’s expressiveness, including gestures and verbal communication, which positively correlated with persuasion effectiveness. Self-knowledge had no measurable impact on assertiveness, with qualitative feedback indicating that excessive assertiveness might negatively impact persuasion.