228 research outputs found

    Conversational affective social robots for ageing and dementia support

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    Socially assistive robots (SAR) hold significant potential to assist older adults and people with dementia in human engagement and clinical contexts by supporting mental health and independence at home. While SAR research has recently experienced prolific growth, long-term trust, clinical translation and patient benefit remain immature. Affective human-robot interactions are unresolved and the deployment of robots with conversational abilities is fundamental for robustness and humanrobot engagement. In this paper, we review the state of the art within the past two decades, design trends, and current applications of conversational affective SAR for ageing and dementia support. A horizon scanning of AI voice technology for healthcare, including ubiquitous smart speakers, is further introduced to address current gaps inhibiting home use. We discuss the role of user-centred approaches in the design of voice systems, including the capacity to handle communication breakdowns for effective use by target populations. We summarise the state of development in interactions using speech and natural language processing, which forms a baseline for longitudinal health monitoring and cognitive assessment. Drawing from this foundation, we identify open challenges and propose future directions to advance conversational affective social robots for: 1) user engagement, 2) deployment in real-world settings, and 3) clinical translation

    Social robots in cognitive interventions. Advances, problems and perspectives

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    Social Assistive Robots are being used in therapeutic interventions for elderly people affected by cognitive impairments. The present paper reports our research lines aiming at investigating the role of a social robot in aiding therapists during cognitive stimulation sessions for elders with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Dementia. We review our studies whose results show that social robots have been positively accepted by the seniors in different experiments. Participants were very attentive and involved in the sessions’ tasks and their experience was mainly positive. Our data suggest that this technology can be a valid tool to support psychotherapists in cognitive stimulation interventions emphasizing the need of multidisciplinary approaches combining assessment of behavior and robotics

    The Role of Personality Factors and Empathy in the Acceptance and Performance of a Social Robot for Psychometric Evaluations

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    Research and development in socially assistive robotics have produced several novel applications in the care of senior people. However, some are still unexplored such as their use as psychometric tools allowing for a quick and dependable evaluation of human users’ intellectual capacity. To fully exploit the application of a social robot as a psychometric tool, it is necessary to account for the users’ factors that might influence the interaction with a robot and the evaluation of user cognitive performance. To this end, we invited senior participants to use a prototype of a robot-led cognitive test and analyzed the influence of personality traits and user’s empathy on the cognitive performance and technology acceptance. Results show a positive influence of a personality trait, the “openness to experience”, on the human-robot interaction, and that other factors, such as anxiety, trust, and intention to use, are influencing technology acceptance and correlate the evaluation by psychometric tests

    Socially Assistive Robots for Older Adults and People with Autism: An Overview

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    Over one billion people in the world suffer from some form of disability. Nevertheless, according to the World Health Organization, people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to deficiencies in services, such as health care, rehabilitation, support, and assistance. In this sense, recent technological developments can mitigate these deficiencies, offering less-expensive assistive systems to meet users’ needs. This paper reviews and summarizes the research efforts toward the development of these kinds of systems, focusing on two social groups: older adults and children with autism.This research was funded by the Spanish Government TIN2016-76515-R grant for the COMBAHO project, supported with Feder funds. It has also been supported by Spanish grants for PhD studies ACIF/2017/243 and FPU16/00887

    Detecting emotions during a memory training assisted by a social robot for individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

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    The attention towards robot-assisted therapies (RAT) had grown steadily in recent years particularly for patients with dementia. However, rehabilitation practice using humanoid robots for individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is still a novel method for which the adherence mechanisms, indications and outcomes remain unclear. An effective computing represents a wide range of technological opportunities towards the employment of emotions to improve human-computer interaction. Therefore, the present study addresses the effectiveness of a system in automatically decode facial expression from video-recorded sessions of a robot-assisted memory training lasted two months involving twenty-one participants. We explored the robot’s potential to engage participants in the intervention and its effects on their emotional state. Our analysis revealed that the system is able to recognize facial expressions from robot-assisted group therapy sessions handling partially occluded faces. Results indicated reliable facial expressiveness recognition for the proposed software adding new evidence base to factors involved in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The use of a humanoid robot as a mediating tool appeared to promote the engagement of participants in the training program. Our findings showed positive emotional responses for females. Tasks affects differentially affective involvement. Further studies should investigate the training components and robot responsiveness

    Artificial Vision Algorithms for Socially Assistive Robot Applications: A Review of the Literature

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    Today, computer vision algorithms are very important for different fields and applications, such as closed-circuit television security, health status monitoring, and recognizing a specific person or object and robotics. Regarding this topic, the present paper deals with a recent review of the literature on computer vision algorithms (recognition and tracking of faces, bodies, and objects) oriented towards socially assistive robot applications. The performance, frames per second (FPS) processing speed, and hardware implemented to run the algorithms are highlighted by comparing the available solutions. Moreover, this paper provides general information for researchers interested in knowing which vision algorithms are available, enabling them to select the one that is most suitable to include in their robotic system applicationsBeca Conacyt Doctorado No de CVU: 64683

    Assistive technologies to address capabilities of people with dementia: from research to practice

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    Assistive technologies (AT) became pervasive and virtually present in all our life domains. They can be either an enabler or an obstacle leading to social exclusion. The Fondation Médéric Alzheimer gathered international experts of dementia care, with backgrounds in biomedical, human and social sciences, to analyse how AT can address the capabilities of people with dementia, on the basis of their needs. Discussion covered the unmet needs of people with dementia, the domains of daily life activities where AT can provide help to people with dementia, the enabling and empowering impact of technology to improve their safety and wellbeing, barriers and limits of use, technology assessment, ethical and legal issues. The capability approach (possible freedom) appears particularly relevant in person-centered dementia care and technology development. The focus is not on the solution, rather on what the person can do with it: seeing dementia as disability, with technology as an enabler to promote capabilities of the person, provides a useful framework for both research and practice. This article summarizes how these concepts took momentum in professional practice and public policies in the past fifteen years (2000-2015), discusses current issues in the design, development and economic model of AT for people with dementia, and covers how these technologies are being used and assessed
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