How Can Signs on Public Robots Prevent Robot Bullying

This paper explores how adhesive signs on public robots can prevent robot bullying. Participants were presented with three different sign variants attached to a cleaning robot in a Virtual Reality scenario: informative (alluding to surveillance/ legal consequences), prompting (imperative to keep away from the robot), and feeling (emotional appeal) and reported their tendencies for anti-bullying behavior and perceptions of the robot. Eye tracking was used to measure visual attention. All signs elicited anti-bullying tendencies and were rated comprehensible. The robot with the feeling sign was perceived most human- and least tool-like, capable of emotions, and induced the highest amount of gaze fixations. The informative sign supported fast, low-effort compre-hension and reinforced a tool-like perception. Findings suggest adhesive signs are a viable, low-obtrusive preventive strategy and sign selection should be context-driven: informative for quick pass-by messaging, feeling for deeper engagement.