The effect of conversation on altruism: A comparative study with different media and generations.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of climate change and its effects on future generations, most individuals are still hesitant to make environmental changes that would especially benefit future generations. In this study, we investigate whether dialogue can influence people's altruistic behavior toward future generations of humans, and how it may be affected by participant age and the appearance of the conversation partner. We used a human, an android robot called Telenoid, and a speaker as representatives of future generations. Participants were split among an old age group and a young age group and were randomly assigned to converse with one of the aforementioned representatives. We asked the participants to play a round of the Dictator Game with the representative they were assigned, followed by an interactive conversation and another round of the Dictator Game in order to gauge their level of altruism. The results show that, on average, participants gave more money after having an interactive conversation, and that older adults tend to give more money than young adults. There were no significant differences between the three representatives. The results show that empathy might have been the most important factor in the increase in altruistic behavior for all participants.

Social robot for older adults with cognitive decline: a preliminary trial.

The number of older adults living alone is rapidly increasing. Loneliness in older adults not only degrade their quality of life but also causes troubles such as heavy burden on the medical staff, especially when cognitive decline is present. Social robots could be used in several ways to reduce such problems. As a first step towards this goal, we introduced conversation robots into the homes of older adults with cognitive decline to evaluate the robot's availability and acceptance during several months. The study involved two steps, one for evaluating the robustness of the proposed robotic system, and the second one to examine the long-term acceptance of social robots by older adults with cognitive decline living alone. Our data shows that after several weeks of human-robot interaction, the participants continued to use the robot and successfully integrated them into their lives. These results open the possibility of further research involving how sustained interaction can be achieved, as well as which factors contributed to the acceptance of the robot.