ABSTRACT
With the development and progress of intelligent algorithms, more and more social robots are used to interfere with the information transmission and direction of international public opinion. This paper takes the agenda of COVID-19 in Twitter as the breakthrough point, and through the methods of web crawler, Twitter robot detection, data processing and analysis, aims at the agenda setting of social robots for China issues, that is, to carry out data visualization analysis for the stigmatized China image. Through case analysis, concrete and operable countermeasures for building the international communication system of China image were provided. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, two problems arose. Students lacked 1) social opportunities and 2) motivation to maintain their schedules, e.g., studying or relaxing, as their work-life balance disappeared. Thus, we designed a social companion robot, Bulb, that helped students cycle through daily activities with subtle cues, i.e., light, gaze, and movements. Bulb's "head"would light up with different colors or it gazes at different parts of the room, e.g., at the laptop to hint at studying or wiggling to suggest a small break. Five students evaluated Bulb through at-home use, which demonstrated that Bulb was seen as a "living being"and students were responsive to its social cues, like following Bulb's gaze, resulting in a higher awareness and follow-through of students' schedules. Our contribution is in designing a social companion robot that subtly persuaded students through light and anthropomorphic social cues, helping them maintain their daily schedule during the pandemic. © 2023 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, telepresence systems based on the Extended Reality (XR) system are actively developed and used for remote collaboration due to COVID-19. Still, several issues, such as limited traversable space in Virtual Reality (VR) and require all participants to wear head-mounted display (HMD), stop these systems from being used in our daily life. On the other hand, telepresence robots have been used in various fields before the pandemic. However, these robots also have a limitation in that the current form is incapable of delivering non-verbal expressions, which is essential for social interaction. Therefore, we present a Holobot, a telepresence robot based on the XR system. A remote user connects to the Holobot through VR HMDs, and the Holobot augments a virtual avatar that projectsusers' facial and gesture expressions.We developed a prototype and conducted a simple field test in the exhibition to receive feedback. VR participants enjoyed exploring remote spaces and interacting with each other through Holobot. Furthermore, remote space participants mentioned that a 1:1 scale avatar helped to build co-presence with the VR user. Based on these insights, we think Holobot could provide design guideline for future telepresence robot. For further approach, we plan to improve our prototype and conduct user test for structured evaluation of our system. © 2023 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Since interactions with social robots are novel and exciting for many people, one particular concern in this specific area of human-robot interaction (HRI) is the extent to which human users will experience the interactions positively over time, when the robot's novelty is particularly salient. In the current paper, we investigated users' experience in long-term HRIs;how users perceive the ongoing interactions and the robot's ability to sustain it over time. Therefore, here we examine the effect of the repeated measures (10 testing sessions) and the discussion theme (Covid-19 related vs general) on the way participants experienced the interaction quality with a social robot and perceived the robot's communication competency over time. We found that despite individual differences between the participants, over time participants found the interactions with Pepper to be of higher quality and that Pepper's communication skills got better. Nevertheless, our results also stressed that the discussion theme has no meaningful nor significant effect on the way people perceive Pepper and the interaction. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
The importance of providing emotional support and assistance to older adults has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. An increasing number of older adults live alone, which promotes loneliness and depression risks. Also, the digital divide exacerbates these issues and other social difficulties, since older adults are not able to use technology to communicate. A socially assistive robot could help to address these loneliness and digital divide problems. However, it is critical to incorporate affectiveness and naturalness to promote the user acceptance of the robot. This project makes use of the existing EVA open-source robotics platform. The aim is to improve the quality of life of older adults by boosting their independence and alleviating loneliness or other emotional issues that can arise. To improve the user acceptance and to get a more natural, affective, non-passive behavior, this paper contributes to integrate several aspects to the EVA robot: a) assistiveness through conversations and a social messaging end-user skill to reduce the digital divide;b) proactivity by means of proactive interventions so EVA is able to start conversations;c) affectivity by means of showing emotions with eyes expressions, user recognition and emotion analysis in user input;and d) naturalness by blending all these characteristics with a low response time in the interaction and the novel wakeface activation method. Finally, a technical evaluation of the proposed solution provides evidence of its appropriate performance. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Education is defined as the process of building an individual and eradicating illiteracy from society. Education is the main engine of the prosperity and development of civilizations. In addition, to being the center of measurement of growth and development of societies, all peoples care about it and seek to develop it. Given the difficult conditions that the world is going through due to the epidemic of Covid-19, the educational sector has a renewed interest in a humanoid social robot, to limit contact with the public and avoid overcrowding in schools and keep pace with education despite the pandemic. This paper aims to propose an interactive tutoring environment, using an assisting humanoid robot to support the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Statistics indicate that the use of educational robots has seen a notable evolution recently, more than 85.70% of teachers have been using robots in the classroom for less than 5 years. The teaching humanoid robot assistant can catch student’s attention, then help teachers improve the way they present their courses and manage their classes. In this work, we represent the main activities that a teacher does to invade the classroom to have a good session with his students. All these activities represent knowledge level tasks for the teacher, while for our humanoid robot assistant, we have defined its tasks that represent primitive level tasks, and we have chained these tasks to give a generic knowledge model that allows defining a knowledge level task for the teacher from a composition of primitives tasks of the assistant humanoid robot in the teaching act. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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In recent years, in response to the effects of Covid-19, there has been an increase in the use of social robots in service organisations, as well as in the number of interactions between consumers and robots. However, it is not clear how consumers are valuing these experiences or what the main drivers that shape them are. Furthermore, it is an open research question whether these experiences undergone by consumers can be affected by their own personality. This study attempts to shed some light on these questions and, to do so, an experiment is proposed in which a sample of 378 participants evaluate a simulated front-office service experience delivered by a social robot. The authors investigate the underlying process that explains the experience and find that cognitive-functional factors, emphasising efficiency, have practically the same relevance as emotional factors, emphasising stimulation. In addition, this research identifies the personality traits of the participants and explores their moderating role in the evaluation of the experience. The results reveal that each personality trait, estimated between high and low poles, generates different responses in the evaluation of the experience.
ABSTRACT
Due to the increasing aging of the population, the number of elderly people requiring care is growing in most European countries. However, the number of caregivers working in nursing homes and on daily care services is declining in countries like Germany or Italy. This limits the time for interpersonal communication. Furthermore, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing during contact restrictions became more important, causing an additional reduction of personal interaction. This social isolation can strongly increase emotional stress. Robotic assistance could contribute to addressing this challenge on three levels: (1) supporting caregivers to respond individually to the needs of patients and residents in nursing homes;(2) observing patients' health and emotional state;(3) complying with high hygiene standards and minimizing human contact if required. To further the research on emotional aspects and the acceptance of robotic assistance in care, we conducted two studies where elderly participants interacted with the social robot Misa. Facial expression and voice analysis were used to identify and measure the emotional state of the participants during the interaction. While interpersonal contact plays a major role in elderly care, the findings reveal that robotic assistance generates added value for both caregivers and patients and that they show emotions while interacting with them. © 2022 ACM.
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Research on social robots in care has often focused on either the care recipients or the technology itself, neglecting the care workers who, in and through their collaborative and coordinative practices, will need to work with the robots. To better understand these interactions with a social robot (Pepper), we undertook a 3 month long-term study within a care home to gain empirical insights into the way the robot was used. We observed how care workers learned to use the device, applied it to their daily work life, and encountered obstacles. Our findings show that the care workers used the robot regularly (1:07 hours/day) mostly in one-to-one interactions with residents. While the robot had a limited effect on reducing the workload of care workers, it had other positive effects, demonstrating the potential to enhance the quality of care. © 2022 Owner/Author.
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Precautionary measures (e.g., social distancing, mask wearing, washing hands regularly) to limit the transmission of the Coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) have been put in place worldwide. However, a limited understanding of precautionary measures and low compliance with them has been observed in older adults with neurocognitive disorders, persons with intellectual disability, or mental illness. The objective of this study is to create and evaluate a robot-mediated activity to deliver information on COVID-19 precautionary measures in an accessible and engaging way using the humanoid robot Nao. An interactive scenario explaining and demonstrating COVID-19 precautionary measures is created using the verbal and non-verbal behaviours of the robot. The scenario (≈5 min) is presented to 124 users of a geriatric hospital, including the following: older patients (n = 45), accompanying persons (n = 39), and health professionals (n = 40). The data regarding perceived usefulness, acceptability, and accessibility are collected using a questionnaire. A video analysis of the participants' behaviour during the interaction with the robot is performed to examine the quality of engagement in the activity. The results show a good acceptance, satisfaction, and perceived usefulness of the robot-mediated activity. These findings suggest that robot-mediated interventions using humanoid robots can be an effective tool for the delivery of health promotion information.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Robotics , Aged , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/prevention & control , Health Personnel , Humans , Physical Distancing , Robotics/methods , Surveys and QuestionnairesABSTRACT
Social distancing policies such as limits on public gatherings and contact with others were utilized around the world to slow the spread of COVID-19. Yet, decreased social interactions may also threaten people's well-being. In this project, we sought to understand novelty-relevant experiences surrounding in-home companion robot pets for adults that were living in some degree of social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After 6-weeks of participants living with the robot companion, we conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 9) and six themes emerged from our iterative analysis (expectations versus reality, ontological comparisons, interactions, third-party influence, identity, and comfort). Findings suggest that novelty is a complex phenomenon consisting of various elements (i.e., imagined novelty, technology novelty, and relational novelty). Each component influences the user's experience. Our findings also suggest that our understanding of novelty as a nonlinear resource may hold important implications for how we view human-robot relationships beyond initial encounters.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Worldwide, populations are aging exponentially. Older adults and people with dementia are especially at risk of social isolation and loneliness. Social robots, including robotic pets, have had positive impacts on older adults and people with dementia by providing companionship, improving mood, reducing agitation, and facilitating social interaction. Nevertheless, the issue of affordability can hinder technology access. The Joy for All (JfA) robotic pets have showed promise as examples of low-cost alternatives. However, there has been no research that investigated the usability and impact of such low-cost robotic pets based on perceptions and experiences of its use with older adults and people with dementia. OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to explore the usability and impact of the JfA robotic cat, as an example of a low-cost robot, based on perceptions and experiences of using the JfA cat for older adults and people with dementia. METHODS: We used a novel methodology of analyzing a large volume of information that was uploaded by reviewers of the JfA cat onto online consumer review sites. Data were collected from 15 consumer websites. This provided a total of 2445 reviews. Next, all reviews were screened. A total of 1327 reviews that contained information about use of the JfA cat for older adults or people with dementia were included for analysis. These were reviews that contained terms relating to "older adults," "dementia," and "institutional care" and were published in the English language. Descriptive statistics was used to characterize available demographic information, and textual data were qualitatively analyzed using inductive content analysis. RESULTS: Most reviews were derived from consumer sites in the United States, and most reviewers were family members of users (ie, older adults and people with dementia). Based on the qualitative content analysis, 5 key themes were generated: prior expectations, perceptions, meaningful activities, impacts, and practicalities. Reviewers had prior expectations of the JfA cat, which included circumstantial reasons that prompted them to purchase this technology. Their perceptions evolved after using the technology, where most reported positive perceptions about their appearance and interactivity. The use of the robot provided opportunities for users to care for it and incorporate it into their routine. Finally, reviewers also shared information about the impacts of device and practicalities related to its use. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides useful knowledge about the usability and impact of a low-cost pet robot, based on experiences and perceptions of its use. These findings can help researchers, robot developers, and clinicians understand the viability of using low-cost robotic pets to benefit older adults and people with dementia. Future research should consider evaluating design preferences for robotic pets, and compare the effects of low-cost robotic pets with other more technologically advanced robotic pets.
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The idea of this work is to create an interaction between people to keep them connected emotionally during the Covid crisis. The goal is to provide two interactive boards(i-Boards) and to let people communicate using it wireless. The device embodies digital information in physical space and aims to go beyond the limits of graphical user interfaces. It also expands the affordances of simple physical objects (e.g cubes) and surfaces (board). It provides a tangible interface and also has its own elements of fun to keep the interaction as intuitive and as fun as possible. The user interface design choices and the limitations were also investigated. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Older adults and people with dementia are particularly vulnerable to social isolation. Social robots, including robotic pets, are promising technological interventions that can benefit the psychosocial health of older adults and people with dementia. However, issues such as high costs can lead to a lack of equal access and concerns about infection control. Although there are previous reviews on the use of robotic pets for older adults and people with dementia, none have included or had a focus on low-cost and familiarly and realistically designed pet robots. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review is to synthesize evidence on the delivery and impact of low-cost, familiarly and realistically designed interactive robotic pets for older adults and people with dementia. METHODS: The Arksey and O'Malley framework was used to guide this review. First, the research question was identified. Second, searches were conducted on five electronic databases and Google Scholar. Studies were selected using a two-phase screening process, where two reviewers independently screened and extracted data using a standardized data extraction form. Finally, the results were discussed, categorized, and presented narratively. RESULTS: A total of 9 studies were included in the review. Positive impacts related to several psychosocial domains, including mood and affect, communication and social interaction, companionship, and other well-being outcomes. Issues and concerns associated with its use included misperceptions of the robotic pets as a live animal, ethical issues of attachment, negative reactions by users, and other pragmatic concerns such as hygiene and cost. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the findings resonate with previous studies that investigated the effectiveness of other social robots, demonstrating the promise of these low-cost robotic pets in addressing the psychosocial needs of older adults and people with dementia. The affordability of these robotic pets appeared to influence the practicalities of real-world use, such as intervention delivery and infection control, which are especially relevant in light of COVID-19. Moving forward, studies should also consider comparing the effects of these low-cost robots with other robotic pets.