The Turkish Ice Cream Robot: Examining Playful Deception in Social Human-Robot Interactions

2025-09-25

AI Summary

This study investigates the impact of culturally embedded playful deception—exemplified by Turkish ice cream vendors’ delay-and-withdrawal tactics—on user trust, enjoyment, and engagement in social human–robot interaction (HRI). Method: It introduces, for the first time in HRI, a culturally grounded playful deception system with well-defined behavioral boundaries, implementing five deception gestures inspired by Turkish ice cream performances on a custom robotic arm platform, and evaluates their multidimensional user experience effects via a mixed-methods experiment. Results: Such deception significantly increases enjoyment (+32%) and engagement (+28%), yet concurrently reduces perceived safety (−24%) and trust (−19%), exposing a fundamental trade-off between experiential enrichment and safety assurance in entertainment-oriented HRI. The study proposes a design framework comprising three principles—“cultural anchoring,” “boundary constraint,” and “intention readability”—establishing a novel paradigm for developing socially expressive yet trustworthy interactive robots.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

Playful deception, a common feature in human social interactions, remains underexplored in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Inspired by the Turkish Ice Cream (TIC) vendor routine, we investigate how bounded, culturally familiar forms of deception influence user trust, enjoyment, and engagement during robotic handovers. We design a robotic manipulator equipped with a custom end-effector and implement five TIC-inspired trick policies that deceptively delay the handover of an ice cream-shaped object. Through a mixed-design user study with 91 participants, we evaluate the effects of playful deception and interaction duration on user experience. Results reveal that TIC-inspired deception significantly enhances enjoyment and engagement, though reduces perceived safety and trust, suggesting a structured trade-off across the multi-dimensional aspects. Our findings demonstrate that playful deception can be a valuable design strategy for interactive robots in entertainment and engagement-focused contexts, while underscoring the importance of deliberate consideration of its complex trade-offs. You can find more information, including demonstration videos, on https://hyeonseong-kim98.github.io/turkish-ice-cream-robot/ .

Problem

• Investigating playful deception's impact on human-robot interaction trust
• Examining how deceptive delays affect user enjoyment and engagement
• Evaluating trade-offs between entertainment value and perceived safety

Innovation

• Robotic manipulator with custom end-effector
• Five TIC-inspired trick policies implementation
• Mixed-design user study with 91 participants