Robots are becoming more prominent in assisting persons with disabilities (PwD). Whilst there is broad consensus that robots can assist in mitigating physical impairments, the extent to which they can facilitate social inclusion remains equivocal. In fact, the exposed status of assisted workers could likewise lead to reduced or increased perceived stigma by other workers. We present a vignette study on the perceived cognitive and behavioral stigma toward PwD in the workplace. We designed four experimental conditions depicting a coworker with an impairment in work scenarios: overburdened work, suitable work, and robot-assisted work only for the coworker, and an offer of robot-assisted work for everyone. Our results show that cognitive stigma is significantly reduced when the work task is adapted to the person's abilities or augmented by an assistive robot. In addition, offering robot-assisted work for everyone, in the sense of universal design, further reduces perceived cognitive stigma. Thus, we conclude that assistive robots reduce perceived cognitive stigma, thereby supporting the use of collaborative robots in work scenarios involving PwDs.

翻译：机器人正日益广泛地应用于辅助残障人士。尽管普遍共识认为机器人有助于缓解身体机能障碍，但其在促进社会包容方面的作用程度仍不明确。事实上，受辅助工作者的暴露状态同样可能导致其他工作者感知污名的减少或增加。我们通过情境实验研究了工作场所中对残障人士的认知与行为层面污名感知。我们设计了四种实验情境，描绘工作场景中一位存在机能障碍的同事：工作负荷过重、工作适配、仅该同事获得机器人辅助，以及为所有人提供机器人辅助工作。研究结果表明，当工作任务根据个人能力进行调整或通过辅助机器人增强时，认知污名显著降低。此外，以通用设计理念为所有人提供机器人辅助工作，能进一步降低感知的认知污名。因此我们得出结论：辅助机器人能降低认知污名感知，从而支持在涉及残障人士的工作场景中使用协作机器人。