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Informed Consent to Participate in Research Involving Minimal Risk

Title: Understanding Indicators of Robots’ Vision Capabilities


Overview: You are being asked to take part in a research study. This document should help you to decide if you want to participate. This Overview has basic information about the study. The rest has more details.

Study Staff: This study is being led by Dr. Zhao Han, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF). This person is called the Principal Investigator. Other approved research assistants may act on behalf of the Principal Investigator.

Study Details: This study is being conducted in NEC (Northwest Education Complex) 0118. The goal is to see if you can figure out what the robot can see. It will take up to half an hour.

Voluntary Participation: Your participation is voluntary. You do not have to participate and may stop at any time. In those cases, there will be no penalties or loss of opportunities.

USF employees: Your decision to participate or not will not affect your job status, employment record, employee evaluations, or advancement opportunities. USF students: Your decision to participate or not will not affect your student status, course grade, recommendations, or access to future courses or training opportunities.

Benefits and Compensation: There are no direct benefits and no cost to participate. If you complete the study, you will get a $10 gift card for your participation. For USF employees: If you do not want to complete the taxpayer ID form, you can still participate in the study, but you will not be compensated.

Risk: This research is considered minimal risk, the same as you face in daily life. You will wear an augmented reality headset, and while interacting with it, some people may become tired or experience eye strain, headaches, or possible nausea. In those cases, please slide up the device to recover and let the experimenter know. However, we mitigate this minimal risk by having you only wear the headset for up to 5 minutes per condition, and you will slide up the visor while finishing surveys. So, the likelihood that you will be uncomfortable is very small.

Confidentiality: We plan to publish the findings from this study. We will keep your study information private and confidential. Anyone with the authority to see your records must keep them confidential.


Study Procedures: There will be only one visit. You will be asked to do the following.

  1. Complete a demographic survey and watch three videos on
    • how to wear an augmented reality headset
    • how to choose an augmented reality button by pointing through it & how to scan the QR codes
    • how to read the instructions
  2. Finish three steps to build a toy airplane using three tools or assembly parts.
    • At each step, you will turn away from the robot to read an instruction to know which object or tool to look for.
    • Then, you will choose a button to enable a design specified by the experimenter.
    • Then, you will turn to face the robot and guess if the robot can see the tool or object.
      • If you believe the robot can see it, please say, “I want the robot to give it to me.”
        • Note that the robot will not move in this case. What you say will allow us to confirm whether you believe the robot can see it.
      • Otherwise, please say, “I want to go get it myself.”
    • After each step, you will complete two surveys to fill out
      • what you decided to do and your confidence levels
      • what your workload was for the decision

You will be video recorded. We will keep them on OneDrive and will delete them within 5 years. However, we may publish those videos with faces blurred.

Total Number of Subjects: About 30 to 40 individuals will take part in this study at USF.

Privacy and Confidentiality: We will do our best to keep your records, including videos, private and confidential. We cannot guarantee absolute confidentiality. Your personal information may be disclosed if required by law. Besides the study stuff, certain people may need to see your study records, including:

  • Certain government and university people who need to know more about the study. For example, individuals who oversee this study may need to look at your records. This is done to ensure that we are doing the study in the right way. They also need to ensure that we are protecting your rights and safety. 
  • Any agency of the federal, state, or local government that regulates this research, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Human Research Protection.
  • The USF Institutional Review Board (IRB) and its related staff who have oversight responsibilities for this study, and staff in USF Research Integrity and Compliance.

Your identifiers will be removed from your private records or your samples. Your information or samples could be used and/or distributed to another investigator for future research studies without additional consent from you or your Legally Authorized Representative. We will do our best to protect your data and samples during storage if they are shared. However, it remains possible that someone could identify you.

All surveys will be online, it is possible, although unlikely, that unauthorized individuals could gain access to your responses. Confidentiality will be maintained to the degree permitted by the technology used. We use the HTTPS protocol, so the interception of data sent via the Internet is not possible.

You can get the answers to your questions, concerns, or complaints: If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this study, email Dr. Zhao Han at zhaohan@usf.edu. If you have questions about your rights, complaints, or issues as a participant, call the USF IRB at (813) 974-5638 or email RSCH-IRB@usf.edu.