1. Introduction

<include a short summary of the claims to be tested, i.e., the effects of the functions in a specific use case>

The aim of our project was to provide support for people with dementia in their hobby of painting. This was done to bring some joy and comfort into their lives, especially if they previously enjoyed doing it. This could be done with a human caretaker but having a humanoid robot like Pepper has certain advantages in the overall painting activity. 

Pepper can improve and continue the engagement of PwDs towards painting. This would be done by gently triggering the PwD to paint and then providing support during the activity. Pepper will also as a result of the painting activity improve the quality and life of the PwD. This can be done by supporting them during painting and also playing some calming, ambient music. The painting activity would also bring together the PwD and their family since during the painting activity personalised recommendations could be given to the PwD to paint and once the painting is done, a picture could be taken and sent to the family. This should provide a much better connectedness and relatedness between the PwD and their family. Pepper would not do the painting activity for the PwD instead it will just guide them so it should also provide a much better sense of autonomy towards the task.

For all of these effects, we plan on using different questionnaires geared towards capturing the required measure to effectively evaluate our claims.

2. Method

The prototype was evaluated with an in-person experiment with multiple participants in a between-subject study.

2.1 Participants
Our colleagues from the course CS4235 SCE since the scope of the course does not allow us to evaluate our robot with actual PwDs.

2.2 Experimental Design

For the experiment, we used a between-subject design. Two control groups were set up and this allowed us to properly proceed ahead with the evaluation of our research question. The first control group did not interact with the robot at all whereas the second group did. This helped us to avoid bias within our results.

2.3 Tasks

We set up two tasks. One for the control group and one for the test group. 

For the control group, we put each participant in front of a canvas and provided them with pencils and watercolors and asked them to paint whatever they wanted to. 

For the test group, we provided them with the painting and drawing utensils and the canvas as well, but we had our robot guiding the activity. The robot was controlled through a Wizard of Oz system. 

2.4 Measures

We solely used qualitative measures for our experiment, as painting is a highly subjective experience. 

We gave each participant a questionnaire before and after the session. In both the before and after questionnaires we measured their mood and satisfaction to derive the change that the session brought to their mental status. 

We also asked them for more specific feedback on different functions of the robot so we could find areas to improve, as this was the first prototype. 

Lastly, we also measured their previous experience with painting, to see if the robot has a different impact on experienced and inexperienced painters. 

2.5 Procedure

The procedure was conducted as follows:

1. Welcome participants and explain what they are going to be doing.
2. Have them sign the consent form.
3. Complete questionnaire 1 regarding:
   1. Their current mood
   2. Their previous painting/drawing experience
4. Have them do the painting session, either with the robot or not, depending which group they belonged to. 
5. Complete questionnaire 2 regarding:
   1. Their current mood
   2. Their satisfaction with the activity
   3. Whether they would like to paint more because of the activity
   4. Other feedback

2.6 Material

1. Consent form. To protect the privacy of participants and ensure that they accept that their data was analyzed by researchers, we had each participant fill in a consent form. This consent form and experiment was approved by the Ethics Commission of the TU Delft.
2. Pepper robot. We programmed this robot to interact with the participants as described in our earlier sections.
3. Utensils for painting and drawing: canvas, watercolors and pencils. We offer each participant the choice whether they want to draw or paint. 
4. Microsoft forms. All the questionnaires were performed by Microsoft Forms, a GDPR/TU Delft approved tool for gathering data. 

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusions