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3. Human-Robot Collaboration

Version 5.1 by Marijn Roelvink on 2023/03/03 10:51

Technology is nowadays everywhere in our life, bringing information, support and enjoyment. However, for elderly people or people with dementia, the normal modes of technology (through smartphones or laptops) are harder to access due to their decreased mental and physical capabilities. The research from [1] shows that using a social robot can improve the elderly's  interaction with technology through the intuitive human-like voice interaction with the robot. Moreover, [1] also showed that interacting with robots through song, games or other activities enhanced the PwD's positive experiences. 

In the research of [2], several needs and results arise through the long term trials with social robots applied in a caring home. The robots' function was mainly supportive in terms of entertainment rather than actual functional tasks. Also, the robot needs to be flexible and capable to adapt to dynamic situations in order to provide actual added value. This last insight is also supported by [3], stating that a robot needs to be able to adapt to a persons needs over time in order to not become repetitive. 

[4] has done a ten-week case study on elderly interacting with Pepper. Here, they played different games with Pepper, including physical and cognitive exercises, as well as music quizzes. Several significant lessons emerged from these observations. First of all, the robot needs to speak slowly and clearly, and needs to be able to repeat or break down its instructions in smaller steps if the person does not understand it. Moreover, the interaction still requires some training for the residents. In the first sessions, the residents had to get used to the way the robot interacts, and needed more explicit instructions while after a while, some parts could be skipped as they better knew what to expect from the robot. Furthermore, the researchers noted that the presence of a caregiver was key for the residents as well as for moderation of the robot, as the robot still had some technical and physical limitations. They also concluded that the human-robot interaction was best done in a group setting due to the uncertainty of the residents in dealing with the robot. In the group, the residents could learn from each other and laugh together about the robot. The key take-away from the residents: robots can enhance an activity but not replace human interaction. 

Wild: for disabled persons we can make a robot that paints for them through eye tracking: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-6581/10/2/54

  1. M.-T. Chu, R. Khosla, S. M. S. Khaksar and K. Nguyen, "Service innovation through social robot engagement to improve dementia care quality", Assistive Technology, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 8-18, 2017.
  2. D. Hebesberger, T. Koertner, C. Gisinger, J. Pripfl and C. Dondrup, "Lessons learned from the deployment of a long-term autonomous robot as companion in physical therapy for older adults with dementia a mixed methods study," 2016 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Christchurch, New Zealand, 2016, pp. 27-34, doi: 10.1109/HRI.2016.7451730.
  3. B. Irfan, A. Ramachandran, S. Spaulding, D. F. Glas, I. Leite and K. L. Koay, "Personalization in Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction," 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Daegu, Korea (South), 2019, pp. 685-686, doi: 10.1109/HRI.2019.8673076.
  4. Felix Carros, Johanna Meurer, Diana Löffler, David Unbehaun, Sarah Matthies, Inga Koch, Rainer Wieching, Dave Randall, Marc Hassenzahl, and Volker Wulf. 2020. Exploring Human-Robot Interaction with the Elderly: Results from a Ten-Week Case Study in a Care Home. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376402