Our robot aims to help delay the stage of dementia or slow down the deterioration of memory. The best situation is that we can test the robot with real PwD and in a relatively long time period to see if this robot really works, which is impossible for our project. So our evaluation performs in a group control way. Participants are divided into two groups, group A with the intelligent one, and group B with the dummy one.
Problem statement and research questions
The main use cases that the evaluation focuses on are UC001: Daily todo list and UC005: Quiz. Based on the claims corresponding to those use cases, we derive the following research questions:
- Are PwD willing to play the quiz?
- Are PwD happy to listen to music?
- Are PwD happy if they get the correct answer?
- Does PwD enhance their memory of the association between music and activities?
Method
The control group evaluation is used. One group of participants interacts with a dummy robot and another group interacts with the intelligent robot. The only difference between these two groups is the independent variable - dummy or intelligent robot, which makes our result more reasonable.
Besides, Our group decided to use a mixed-method approach for the evaluation.
- Quantitative data will be derived during the experiment such as the number of mistakes the participant makes during the quiz.
- Qualitative data expected to be gathered through questionnaires, such as to what extent participants are satisfied with using the robot, is also adopted for evaluation.
By measuring these two types of data, we will manage to assess if our claims are achieved and the research questions are answered.
Participants
We invited 19 participants. To validate our research question that the quiz will help people better memorize music-activity links, participants will be divided into two groups, Group A with the intelligent robot(9 participants) and Group B(10 participants) with the dummy robot.
Experimental design
The experiment will be conducted to simulate the reinforcement learning process of musical memory related to daily activities and to investigate if the quiz is indeed able to help with the learning. The group of participants will be divided into 3 subgroups that simulate patients in different stages of dementia. The participants will be given artificial memory loss by forcing them to remember a large number of songs they have to associate with certain activities. From each group one of the participants will be asked to play the caregiver and another participant will take the roll of loved one. With these participants the interactions between the actors will be tested. The interactions are described in the design patterns.
When the participant playing the role of patient has learned the association between the music pieces and activities the robot will start playing certain pieces of music. The participant has to recall the correct activity associated with the music piece. When this is wrong the loved one can step in and call to remind the
Tasks
Event: Quiz
| No. | Group A | Group B |
| 1 | Memorize six pieces of music corresponding with different activities; | Memorize six pieces of music corresponding with different activities; |
| 2 | Play quiz with the dumb robot for five minutes, which will not correct the participant when wrong answers are given ; | Play quiz with the smart robot for five minutes, which will correct the participant when wrong answers are given; |
| 3 | Test how well the participant remember the music-activity pairs by counting the mistakes made; | Test how well the participant remember the music-activity pairs by counting the mistakes made; |
Measures
During the experiment, count how many tries it takes the user to answer correctly
After the experiment, ask the user to fill in the system usability scale and the questionnaire regarding mood and satisfaction.
Procedure
- Sign the consent form;
2. Complete the given tasks as instructed;
3. Complete a questionnaire
Material
Robot
The robot plays an important part in our experiment.
Consent form