Human-Agent Teamwork

Joint activity

An important aspect while performing joint activities is the predictability of the interacting parties. In our case the patient is able to predict the actions of the robot as they are consistent, time bound and they ideally share the same knowledge about the schedule and music. The robot is able to predict the actions of the patient as it knows the skill level of the patient for laying the correct associations between activities and music. Furthermore, the robot has the capabilities to modify the actions of the patient to perform the required tasks. Thus enabling successful joint activities between the two actors.      

Knowledge processes

The theory of mind describes the inclination of people to assign life-like characteristics to objects such as intentions, desires and emotions. This helps persons understand and predict the behavior of these objects. In our case, by using the humanoid NAO robot, this process can be reinforced. Therefore helping patients better understand the robot and possibly even more convincing them to follow the robot’s directions.

The shared mental model is the knowledge team members have to explain, predict and coordinate team behavior. Where task related knowledge describes what needs to be done and how, and team related knowledge describes information about who knows and can do what. Similarly, the transactive memory system can be used to predict team performance and describes that each team member has its own knowledge and knows who knows what. In our case the robot has expertise about what needs to happen and when, while the patient knows how and with which equipment the tasks need to be performed.       

Task management

Important in our use case is the task management process which is done by the caregiver in combination with the robot. Dependencies between activities are encoded by when they need to be performed and the synchronization of the team members is done by the robot in a top down approach. Possible future additions would be for the robot to take into account the current emotional and physical status of the patient when denoting a task has to be performed.