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Changes for page b. Test

Last modified by Demi Breen on 2023/04/09 15:10
From version 50.2
edited by Maya Elasmar
on 2023/04/07 13:37
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To version 55.1
edited by Hugo van Dijk
on 2023/04/07 16:12
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79 79  
80 80  == 2.5 Procedure ==
81 81  
82 -
83 83  The procedure is as follows: we want the to test the claims mentioned above in the introduction. Therefore we programmed two routes in Choreography: one for the emotion-based motivation test and one for the goal-based motivation. To focus on only these two types of motivations, everything else in the route was kept the same. This is also to make sure that nothing else besides the motivation influences the participant's opinion on taking the walk.
84 84  
85 85  For the exeperiment we wrote an [[orientation script>>doc:3\. Evaluation.Scenario description.WebHome]] for the participants to introduce them to our design and explain them what they should do and that they should step into the shoes of our persona Bob. Bob is a person with anger issues and dementia. However, the participants did not know whether they are tested with emotion-based or goal-based motivation walk. We also wrote a consent form to ask for their consent to take part in the experiment. One of the main points in the consent from is that they will be recorded. We wanted to record them to re-evaluate all the experiments and see if we missed something. This also helped us with the final results and the discussion. If the participant did not agree, then we of course did not record him/her.
86 86  
87 -Then
86 +The following happend during an experiment:
88 88  
89 -The robot and students need to perform the following tasks:
90 -
91 91  ~1. Pepper will be turned on and will scan/check his environment
92 92  
93 93  2. Pepper will look for a face and will turn to the person that he sees
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98 98  
99 99  5. Pepper will start motivating based on the answer that the student gives:
100 100  
101 - 5.1 When the student says yes, Pepper will start walking with the student and during the walk will have some small talk
102 -5.2 When the student says no, Pepper will start the motivational part of the experiment. For the first experiment Pepper will use emotion-based motivation and for the second experiment Pepper will use the goal-based motivation
103 -5.3 If the student then decides to say yes, then Pepper will start walking with the student and during the walk will have some small talk
104 -6. After the walk/activity is finished Pepper will thank the student and will state again how important it is to stay active
98 + 5a. When the student says yes, Pepper will start walking with the student and during the walk will have some small talk
99 + 5b. When the student says no, Pepper will start the motivational part of the experiment. For the first experiment Pepper will use emotion-based  motivation and for the second experiment Pepper will use the goal-based motivation
100 + 5c. If the student then decides to say yes, then Pepper will start walking with the student and during the walk will have some small talk
105 105  
106 -7. Then the student is asked to answer some questions to evaluate the experience.
102 +During the experiment, one of us wrote down observations of the experiment and another one recoreded the experiment if allowed. We had also prepared a questionnaire to measure our claims, which we talked about in details in the measures section. All the participants had to fill in these questionnaire after the experiment. We wanted to make sure that we had an equal amount of both types of tests to get an unbiased result. Hence, we finished the evaluation once we had a relatively good and equal amount of experiments.
107 107  
104 +
108 108  == 2.6 Material ==
109 109  
110 110  The material needed for this experiment is of course the Pepper robot. We also need a laptop to run the robot.
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138 138  
139 139  As the robot's speech recognition could only understand single words due to its implementation, this resulted in numerous occasions where a participant was not understood and had to repeat themselves. It also occurred that the robot understood 'yes' when 'no' was said.
140 140  
141 -- Mention something about only one participant going into Bob's character fully? And that he mentioned that the "no" he was giving was more attention-seeking than a real no.
138 +In total during all of the evaluations performed, only one participant went into the Bob persona fully, which was described for the participant in the orientation script. He mentioned that the "no" he was giving during the test was more attention-seeking than a real no to the walk, which is a very useful observation.
142 142  
143 -- Add that sometimes the robot cut participants off, if they were speaking slower or elaborating on their answers.
140 +In a couple of the evaluations, it happened that the robot cut participants off mid-sentence once it had recognized a word that was spoken if they were speaking slower or elaborating on their answers. This is not ideal for a future and complete design and definitely would be something that needs to be worked on.
144 144  
145 145  
146 146  
147 147  = 4. Discussion =
148 148  
149 -- In terms of the research question, no significant differences were found. It could be that this is true in general, but it is very likely that this is influenced by the circumstances surrounding the design and the evaluation.
146 +In terms of the research question, no significant differences were found between the two different motivational methods. This is however very likely influenced by the circumstances surrounding the design and the evaluation. The design is unfortunately rather limited and with limited capabilities, due to time constraints. Speech recognition didn't always work properly and was not as flexible as desired which made the interactions less realistic for the participant. Things such as elaborating, which would be something that would be a natural part of a leisurely conversation were made very difficult as the robot could not comprehend conversation to the fullest extent.  Since participants were also prompted to give shorter answers and try to keep to things like "yes" and "no" it greatly influenced how participants interacted with the robot.
150 150  
151 -- The design is rather limited and with limited capabilities, due to time constraints. Speech recognition didn't always work properly and was not as flexible as desired which made the interactions less realistic for the participant.
148 +There were also other constraints to the interaction, which had to be given as instructions to the participant before testing. These things included at what distance to stay from the robot, when to join the robot's side when it's time for the walk, how long to wait to speak after a certain prompt, etc. This further made it unnatural but was necessary for the system to perform properly. Ideally, an individual would be able to join the robot's side at any given moment and the robot's movement would not be impacted by the fact that the participant stands too close. Further, one component that has a very significant effect on the results was that it was not possible to test the design with PwD. This was attempted to be resolved by providing a persona description for participants to keep in mind during the testing, but it is difficult to simulate conditions of dementia. Only one participant ended up embodying this character to the fullest extent which was very valuable for the sake of the evaluation but was not enough to explore the concept entirely.
152 152  
153 -- There are also other constraints to the interaction, which have to be given as instructions to the participant before testing, such as at what distance to stay from the robot, when to join the robot's side, how long to wait to speak after a certain prompt, etc. This further made it unnatural but was necessary for the system to perform properly.
150 +This highlights the fact that the results may have been different if participants outside of the course were used since we are all very familiar with these robots and systems. On one hand, it could be positive, since we have all researched dementia and have gained a lot of knowledge within this which could make us better at simulating appropriate behavior with the robot or testing the systems in a reasonable way. But since participants also have an idea of how the robot works prior to the evaluation, based on their own experiences of working with the robot, perhaps some mistakes or issues went undetected. For example, a completely inexperienced user could potentially show other faults in the design that appear only if the system is entirely foreign to the user, which is likely what it would be like with a PwD. Of course, knowing about dementia is not the same thing as actually suffering from the diagnosis, so many aspects have most likely gone undetected there for that reason also.
154 154  
155 -- Since participants were also prompted to give shorter answers and try to keep to things like "yes" and "no" it greatly influenced the way participants interacted with the robot.
152 +The results could also be influenced by the sheer amount of participants, which concluded at 8 participants per group (8 for the goal-oriented approach, and 8 for the emotional approach). Perhaps with more participants, the results would differ to a greater extent between the two approaches. Due to time constraints, it was not possible to include more participants in this particular study. Further, participants who started the interaction with a pre-disposed idea of what they wanted to do, like the participant mentioned above in the "Observations" section, definitely influenced the outcome, since this was no longer about listening to the prompts the robot was giving but more so acting according to a pre-disposed agenda.
156 156  
157 -- Further, it was (obviously) not possible to test the design with PwD. This was attempted to be resolved by providing a persona description for participants to keep in mind during the testing. Only one participant ended up embodying this character.
154 +It is also highly interesting to consider if participants are perhaps inclined to be positive in general, particularly because the users are other students of the course who tend to want to stay positive towards their peers and therefore feel inclined to reply positively or give positive feedback to the study overall. This could cloud the results, while it is still understandable behavior given the context.
158 158  
159 -- Results may have been different if participants outside of the course were used since we are all very familiar with these robots and systems. On one hand it could be positive, since we have all researched dementia and have gained a lot of knowledge within this we could be better at simulating appropriate behaviour with the robot or testing the systems in a reasonable way. But since participants also have an idea of how the robot works perhaps some mistakes or issues went undetected which could have appeared with individuals that are not familiar with the robot. Of course, knowing about dementia is not the same thing as actually suffering from the diagnosis, so many aspects have most likely gone undetected there.
156 +A rather central aspect is also of course that the robot should really take a walk outside and not inside the lab room. Preferably, the test should have been performed in an actual garden in order to be able to assess its capabilities in the appropriate terrain. This would also make it possible to make the walk more elaborate and longer since observations during the evaluation show that participants would have rather had a longer and more extensive walk, which was not possible in the lab environment.
160 160  
161 -- Results could also be influenced by the sheer amount of participants, which concluded at 8 participants per group (8 for the goal-oriented approach, and 8 for the emotional approach). Perhaps with more participants, the results would differ to a greater extent between the two approaches. Due to time constraints, it was not possible to include more participants.
158 +In future studies, the number of participants should be considered, as well as testing the design on PwD and in an actual garden or at the very least a bigger space. The walk should preferably be more extensive and perhaps incorporate aspects of the garden or the environment into the conversation to make the experience more immersing, for example by referring to the flowers that are blooming in the garden and trying to draw PwD's attention to these aspects and create conversations from this. Hopefully, adjustments like these would improve the overall quality of the walk. Further improvements to speech recognition are needed, as well as the smoothness of the walking and the aspect of the participant's distance to the robot. Perhaps if the less realistic aspects discussed above are minimized, a robot that feels more realistic would result in participants listening to the actual prompts given to a larger extent, rather than going into the experiment with a predisposed idea of what they are going to do or answer and would also perhaps deter the participants from tending to reply positively. Further, the motivational prompts were certainly customized to the persona, but further customization could have been considered. For example, it would of course be far greater if the robot has some ability to adapt to the conversation more or less "in real time" by taking in the information given by the PwD and replying in an appropriate manner. Further, intonation could be interpreted and perhaps also shape the responses and prompts of the robot. These things are rather difficult and due to limitations in the current hardware and software may be hard to implement, but it is essential to consider these aspects for future work.
162 162  
163 -- Further participants who started the interaction with a pre-disposed idea of what they wanted to do, like the participant mentioned above in the results section, definitely influenced the outcome, since this was no longer about listening to the prompts the robot was giving.
164 -
165 -- Interesting to consider if participants are perhaps inclined to be positive, or feel like they need to be in such a project evaluation and if ideas like these also ended up affecting the outcome. ?
166 -
167 -- Normally, a robot should really take a walk outside. It should have been tested how a robot will do in an actual garden, totally another surface then the room we did the experiment. Unfortunately, we could not do that, because we are not allowed to move th robot from the room.
168 -
169 -- In future studies the amount of participants should be considered, as well as testing the design on PwD and in a garden. Further improvements to the speech recognition are needed, as well as the smoothness of the walking and the distances travelled and the aspect of the participant's distance to the robot. Perhaps if the less realistic aspects discussed above are minimized, a robot that feels more realistic would result in participants listening to the actual prompts given, rather than going into the experiment with a predisposed idea of what they are going to do or answer and would also perhaps deter the participants from tending to reply positively.
170 -
171 -
172 -**ADD FUTURE WORK**
173 -
174 -
175 175  = 5. Conclusions =
176 176  
177 -Both systems were deemed enjoyable and fascinating, and little rejections were made to both types of persuasions. No significant difference was found in any of the measures between the two groups.
178 178  
163 +1. The participants found the designed systems enjoyable and the robot useful.
164 +1. No significant difference between emotion-based and goal-based persuasion.
165 +1. The participants would not have gone for a walk if the robot didn’t ask them to.
179 179  
180 180  == References ==
181 181