Does anyone want to talk to me? : Reflections on the use of assistance and companion robots in care homes

Held at the AISB'15 ConventionFinal Accepted Versio

The use of UTAUT and Post Acceptance models to investigate the attitude towards a telepresence robot in an educational setting

(1) Background: In the last decade, various investigations into the field of robotics have created several opportunities for further innovation to be possible in student education. However, despite scientific evidence, there is still strong scepticism surrounding the use of robots in some social fields, such as personal care and education; (2) Methods: In this research, we present a new tool named: HANCON model that was developed merging and extending the constructs of two solid and proven models: the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to examine the factors that may influence the decision to use a telepresence robot as an instrument in educational practice, and the Post Acceptance Model to evaluate acceptability after the actual use of a telepresence robot. The new tool is implemented and used to study the acceptance of a Double telepresence robot by 112 pre-service teachers in an educational setting; (3) Results: The analysis of the experimental results predicts and demonstrate a positive attitude towards the use of telepresence robot in a school setting and confirm the applicability of the model in an educational context; (4) Conclusions: The constructs of the HANCON model could predict and explain the acceptance of social telepresence robots in social contexts

Healthcare Robotics

Robots have the potential to be a game changer in healthcare: improving health and well-being, filling care gaps, supporting care givers, and aiding health care workers. However, before robots are able to be widely deployed, it is crucial that both the research and industrial communities work together to establish a strong evidence-base for healthcare robotics, and surmount likely adoption barriers. This article presents a broad contextualization of robots in healthcare by identifying key stakeholders, care settings, and tasks; reviewing recent advances in healthcare robotics; and outlining major challenges and opportunities to their adoption.Comment: 8 pages, Communications of the ACM, 201

Views from within a narrative : Evaluating long-term human-robot interaction in a naturalistic environment using open-ended scenarios

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. Date of acceptance: 16/06/2014This article describes the prototyping of human–robot interactions in the University of Hertfordshire (UH) Robot House. Twelve participants took part in a long-term study in which they interacted with robots in the UH Robot House once a week for a period of 10 weeks. A prototyping method using the narrative framing technique allowed participants to engage with the robots in episodic interactions that were framed using narrative to convey the impression of a continuous long-term interaction. The goal was to examine how participants responded to the scenarios and the robots as well as specific robot behaviours, such as agent migration and expressive behaviours. Evaluation of the robots and the scenarios were elicited using several measures, including the standardised System Usability Scale, an ad hoc Scenario Acceptance Scale, as well as single-item Likert scales, open-ended questionnaire items and a debriefing interview. Results suggest that participants felt that the use of this prototyping technique allowed them insight into the use of the robot, and that they accepted the use of the robot within the scenarioPeer reviewe

A Narrative Approach to Human-Robot Interaction Prototyping for Companion Robots

© 2020 Kheng Lee Koay et al., published by De Gruyter This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This paper presents a proof of concept prototype study for domestic home robot companions, using a narrative-based methodology based on the principles of immersive engagement and fictional enquiry, creating scenarios which are inter-connected through a coherent narrative arc, to encourage participant immersion within a realistic setting. The aim was to ground human interactions with this technology in a coherent, meaningful experience. Nine participants interacted with a robotic agent in a smart home environment twice a week over a month, with each interaction framed within a greater narrative arc. Participant responses, both to the scenarios and the robotic agents used within them are discussed, suggesting that the prototyping methodology was successful in conveying a meaningful interaction experience.Peer reviewe

How Can a Robot Signal Its Incapability to Perform a Certain Task to Humans in an Acceptable Manner?

In this paper, a robot that is using politeness to overcome its incapability to serve is presented. The mobile robot “Alex” is interacting with human office colleagues in their environment and delivers messages, phone calls, and companionship. The robot's battery capacity is not sufficient to survive a full working day. Thus, the robot needs to recharge during the day. By doing so it is unavailable for tasks that involve movement. The study presented in this paper supports the idea that an incapability of fullfiling an appointed task can be overcome by politeness and showing appropriate behaviour. The results, reveal that, even the simple adjustment of spoken utterances towards a more polite phrasing can change the human's perception of the robot companion. This change in the perception can be made visible by analysing the human's behaviour towards the robot

Assistive robotics: research challenges and ethics education initiatives

Assistive robotics is a fast growing field aimed at helping healthcarers in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursery homes, as well as empowering people with reduced mobility at home, so that they can autonomously fulfill their daily living activities. The need to function in dynamic human-centered environments poses new research challenges: robotic assistants need to have friendly interfaces, be highly adaptable and customizable, very compliant and intrinsically safe to people, as well as able to handle deformable materials. Besides technical challenges, assistive robotics raises also ethical defies, which have led to the emergence of a new discipline: Roboethics. Several institutions are developing regulations and standards, and many ethics education initiatives include contents on human-robot interaction and human dignity in assistive situations. In this paper, the state of the art in assistive robotics is briefly reviewed, and educational materials from a university course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI focusing on the assistive context are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Spartan Daily, March 19, 2007

Volume 128, Issue 30https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/10344/thumbnail.jp