Rebecca Q. Stafford

Acceptance of Healthcare Robots for the Older Population: Review and Future Directions

The rapidly ageing population is placing increasing strain on healthcare services. Robots have been proposed as a way to assist people to stay healthy and safe in their own homes. However, despite the need for such assistive devices and the success of some healthcare robots, other robots have had a poor response. This article reviews the literature about human responses to healthcare robots and summarises the variables that have been found to influence responses. It may be possible to increase acceptance of healthcare robots by properly assessing the needs of the human user and then matching the robot’s role, appearance and behaviour to these needs. Because robots have limitations in their abilities, another way to increase acceptance may be to modify the expectations of users to better match robots’ abilities. More research needs to investigate potential users’ needs and expectations in specific situations and whether interventions to increase the match between robot and human can increase acceptance.

Deployment of a service robot to help older people

This paper presents the first version of a mobile service robot designed for older people. Six service application modules were developed with the key objective being successful interaction between the robot and the older people. A series of trials were conducted in an independent living facility at a retirement village, with the participation of 32 residents and 21 staff. In this paper, challenges of deploying the robot and lessons learned are discussed. Results show that the robot could successfully interact with people and gain their acceptance.

Robots with Display Screens: A Robot with a More Humanlike Face Display Is Perceived To Have More Mind and a Better Personality

It is important for robot designers to know how to make robots that interact effectively with humans. One key dimension is robot appearance and in particular how humanlike the robot should be. Uncanny Valley theory suggests that robots look uncanny when their appearance approaches, but is not absolutely, human. An underlying mechanism may be that appearance affects users’ perceptions of the robot’s personality and mind. This study aimed to investigate how robot facial appearance affected perceptions of the robot’s mind, personality and eeriness. A repeated measures experiment was conducted. 30 participants (14 females and 16 males, mean age 22.5 years) interacted with a Peoplebot healthcare robot under three conditions in a randomized order: the robot had either a humanlike face, silver face, or no-face on its display screen. Each time, the robot assisted the participant to take his/her blood pressure. Participants rated the robot’s mind, personality, and eeriness in each condition. The robot with the humanlike face display was most preferred, rated as having most mind, being most humanlike, alive, sociable and amiable. The robot with the silver face display was least preferred, rated most eerie, moderate in mind, humanlikeness and amiability. The robot with the no-face display was rated least sociable and amiable. There was no difference in blood pressure readings between the robots with different face displays. Higher ratings of eeriness were related to impressions of the robot with the humanlike face display being less amiable, less sociable and less trustworthy. These results suggest that the more humanlike a healthcare robot’s face display is, the more people attribute mind and positive personality characteristics to it. Eeriness was related to negative impressions of the robot’s personality. Designers should be aware that the face on a robot’s display screen can affect both the perceived mind and personality of the robot.

Mental Schemas of Robots as More Human-Like Are Associated with Higher Blood Pressure and Negative Emotions in a Human-Robot Interaction

Robots are often portrayed in the media as human-like, yet research suggests that people prefer to interact with robots that are not human-like. This study aimed to investigate whether people’s mental schemas about robots’ humanness were associated with their reactions to a robot. It was hypothesised that people who thought of robots as more human-like would be more anxious when subsequently interacting with a robot. Fifty-seven participants aged over 40 years were asked to draw their idea of a healthcare robot using standardised instructions before seeing the real robot. They reported their emotions at baseline and a medical student measured their blood pressure. The drawings were categorised as human-like or box-like by the researchers and drawing size was measured. Participants were then introduced to a robot that measured their blood pressure, and they reported their emotions during the interaction. Participants who had drawn a human-like robot had significantly greater increases in blood pressure readings and negative emotions from baseline in reaction to the robot compared to those who had drawn a box-like robot. Larger drawings of healthcare robots predicted higher ratings of negative emotions during the robot interaction. This study suggests that people who have mental schemas that robots are human-like experience heightened wariness in interactions with robots. Larger drawings of robots may indicate greater anxiety towards them. Assessing mental schemas of robot human-likeness is an important consideration for the acceptance of social robots. Standardised drawing instructions and scoring are a useful method to assess cognitions and emotions towards robots.

Older People’s Prior Robot Attitudes Influence Evaluations of a Conversational Robot

As the population ages, healthcare robots may help meet increasing demands for mental and physical health services. However more understanding is required of how to make robots acceptable to older people. This study aimed to assess how older peoples’ robot attitudes and drawings were related to their reactions to a conversational robot. We also assessed whether altering the robot’s virtual face affected peoples’ responses. Twenty participants aged over 55 conversed with a Peoplebot robot for 30 min. During the interaction the robot displayed six different face conditions on its monitor in a randomized order. The six robot conditions varied on two dimensions; (i) facial appearance (humanlike, machinelike, or no face), and (ii) robot gender. Measures included the robot attitudes scale, drawings of a robot’s face prior to the interaction, blood pressure (BP), heart rate, and evaluations of the robot. Results suggest participants did not evaluate the robot’s six face displays conditions differently. However, there was a trend for men to evaluate the robot more highly than women did. Participants’ positive attitudes towards robots before the robot interactions were associated with positive robot evaluations after the interactions. Larger drawings were associated with higher systolic BP after interacting with the robot. These findings suggest that, at least in the short-term, people’s pre-existing mental models of robots may be more important for acceptance than the human or machinelikeness, or even the presence of a robot’s virtual face. More research is needed on gender differences in reactions to eldercare robots. Compared with creating different robot faces to meet individual preferences, promoting positive attitudes towards robots may be a cost-effective method of promoting robot acceptance. Drawings of robots may be a useful, more implicit way of assessing anxiety towards robots in potential users.

Benefits and problems of health-care robots in aged care settings: A comparison trial

This study investigated whether multiple health‐care robots could have any benefits or cause any problems in an aged care facility.

Entertainment services of a healthcare robot system for older people in private and public spaces

In this paper, we analyze the use of entertainment services on our healthcare robot system, and find (1) how long robots were used, (2) which entertainment service was most used, (3) which music video category was most preferred, and (4) which music video was most preferred. We developed a healthcare robot system, HealthBot, and deployed several of them in an older care facility, and obtained the usage histories of three kinds of entertainment services: music videos, quotes, and pictures. We report results about the preferences of participants in private and public spaces.

Identifying specific reasons behind unmet needs may inform more specific eldercare robot design

Many countries are facing aging and aged populations and a shortage of eldercare resources. Eldercare robots have been proposed to help close this resource gap. Prevalence of eldercare robots may be enhanced by more acceptable robot design. Current assistive robot design guidelines are general and consequently difficult to translate into specific acceptable design. This paper proposes a method for developing more specific eldercare robot design guidelines. Technology acceptance models suggest acceptable robots need to be perceived as useful as well as easy to use. As older people often have high levels of unmet need, knowledge of the needs of older people and other eldercare stakeholders can suggest how robots could be usefully deployed. It is further proposed that determining the specific reasons why eldercare-needs are unmet may help lead to more specific design guidelines for eldercare robot form and function, as well as the design of robot marketing, distribution and deployment strategies.