31 research outputs found
The influence of culture on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots: an integrative review
Purpose
The aim of the present review is to explore the influence of culture on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots.
Design
An integrative review of current evidence.
Methods
Medline, CINAHL, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Google Scholar were searched from 2000 to 2017. A total of 22 articles met the inclusion criteria and were retrieved and analyzed.
Findings
Culture influences attitudes and preferences towards robots, but due to the limitations of the reviewed studies, concrete conclusions cannot be made. More consistent evidence was found with regard to the influence of culture on nonverbal behaviors and communication styles, with people being more accepting of a robot that behaved more closely to their own culture.
Conclusions
The research field of human–robot interaction provides the current evidence on the influence that culture has on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots, but more research that is guided by strong theoretical frameworks is needed.
Clinical Relevance
With the increased use of humanoid robots in the healthcare system, it is imperative that nurses and other healthcare professionals explore and understand the different factors that can affect the use of robots with patients
Exploring the need of an assistive robot to support reading process: A pilot study
Reading is one of the main activities that readers
are immensely practicing during their daily lives and this activity is accompanied with some challenges that may cause disengagement during the process.Recently, assistive robotics technologies have shown extensive powerful effects in assisting its users to tackle various domain specific problems.From that perspective, the main goal of this pilot study is to investigate the problems that readers encounter during reading process.In
addition, it aims to probe the need of an assistive robot that makes reading process less challenging.A questionnaire survey was distributed to 100 students at Universiti Utara Malaysia and
the analysis of the results showed that an assistive robot is promising to support reading process. Similarly, this study detailed the embodiment and the design aspects that need to be
applied while designing an assistive reading robot
Robotic seals as therapeutic tools in an aged care facility: a qualitative study
Robots, including robotic seals, have been used as an alternative to therapies such as animal assisted therapy in the promotion of health and social wellbeing of older people in aged care facilities. There is limited research available that evaluates the effectiveness of robot therapies in these settings. The aim of this study was to identify, explore, and describe the impact of the use of Paro robotic seals in an aged care facility in a regional Australian city. A qualitative, descriptive, exploratory design was employed. Data were gathered through interviews with the three recreational therapists employed at the facility who were also asked to maintain logs of their interactions with the Paro and residents. Data were transcribed and thematically analysed. Three major themes were identified from the analyses of these data: "a therapeutic tool that's not for everybody," "every interaction is powerful," and "keeping the momentum." Findings support the use of Paro as a therapeutic tool, revealing improvement in emotional state, reduction of challenging behaviours, and improvement in social interactions of residents. The potential benefits justify the investment in Paro, with clear evidence that these tools can have a positive impact that warrants further exploration
Multi-contact Planning on Humans for Physical Assistance by Humanoid
International audienceFor robots to interact with humans in close proximity safely and efficiently, a specialized method to compute whole-body robot posture and plan contact locations is required. In our work, a humanoid robot is used as a caregiver that is performing a physical assistance task. We propose a method for formulating and initializing a non-linear optimization posture generation problem from an intuitive description of the assistance task and the result of a human point cloud processing. The proposed method allows to plan whole-body posture and contact locations on a task-specific surface of a human body, under robot equilibrium, friction cone, torque/joint limits, collision avoidance, and assistance task inherent constraints. The proposed framework can uniformly handle any arbitrary surface generated from point clouds, for autonomously planing the contact locations and interaction forces on potentially moving, movable, and deformable surfaces, which occur in direct physical human-robot interaction. We conclude the paper with examples of posture generation for physical human-robot interaction scenarios
The influence of culture on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots: an integrative review
Purpose
The aim of the present review is to explore the influence of culture on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots.
Design
An integrative review of current evidence.
Methods
Medline, CINAHL, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Google Scholar were searched from 2000 to 2017. A total of 22 articles met the inclusion criteria and were retrieved and analyzed.
Findings
Culture influences attitudes and preferences towards robots, but due to the limitations of the reviewed studies, concrete conclusions cannot be made. More consistent evidence was found with regard to the influence of culture on nonverbal behaviors and communication styles, with people being more accepting of a robot that behaved more closely to their own culture.
Conclusions
The research field of human–robot interaction provides the current evidence on the influence that culture has on attitudes towards humanoid and animal‐like robots, but more research that is guided by strong theoretical frameworks is needed.
Clinical Relevance
With the increased use of humanoid robots in the healthcare system, it is imperative that nurses and other healthcare professionals explore and understand the different factors that can affect the use of robots with patients
Sosyal hizmette füturizm: Transhümanizm, insan hayatının oyunlaştırılması, homo roboticus ve bakım
Bu çalışmada sanatsal bir akım olarak ortaya çıkıp toplumsal ve teknolojik bir
boyut kazanan fütürizm hareketinin temelleri üzerinden sosyal çalışma
disiplinine ve mesleğine yönelik bir değerlendirme yapılması amaçlanmaktadır.
Böylece sosyal çalışma disiplininin ve mesleğinin gelecek yıllardaki olası
ajandasına yönelik öngörülerin açıklanması planlanmaktadır. Bu çalışmada
fütürizm ile sosyal hizmet arasındaki ilişki insan hakları, sosyal adalet, eşitlik,
toplumsal refah, bireyin onuru ve saygınlığı gibi evrensel değerler üzerine
kurulmuş olan sosyal hizmet uygulamalarının nasıl bir geleceğe doğru yol
aldığını ortaya koyma çabasıyla kurulmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, yeni bir felsefi
hareket olarak ortaya çıkan transhümanizm kavramı sosyal hizmetin geleceği ile
ilgili olarak ele alınmaktadır. Daha sonra insan hayatının oyunlaştırılması,
homo roboticus ve bakım gibi konular tartışılmaktadır. Bu konular son birkaç
yıldır sosyal bilimlerin gündemindedir. Bu makalenin sosyal hizmet alanında bu
konularla ilgili olarak hazırlanan ilk çalışmalardan biri olması nedeniyle bir
başlangıç çalışması olarak kabul edilmesi ve gelecekteki çalışmalarla
desteklenmesi beklenmektedir.This study aims at making an assessment of the social work discipline and
profession on the basis of the futurism movement, which emerged as an artistic
movement and gained social and technological dimensions. Therefore,
predictions for a possible agenda of the future social work discipline and
profession are discussed. In this study, the relationship between futurism and
social work is established in an effort to reveal how social work practices, based
on universal values such as human rights, social justice, equality, social
prosperity and the dignity of the individual, are moving forward. In this context,
the future of social work is discussed under the following three topics: (1)
transhumanism, (2) gamification of human life, (3) homo roboticus and care. In
fact, all these topics have been on the agenda of social sciences for the last few
years. Despite this interest, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this article
is one of the first studies on these issues in the field of social work and has raised
many questions in need of further studies
Enablers and barriers to the implementation of socially assistive humanoid robots in health and social care: a systematic review
Objectives: Socially assistive humanoid robots are considered a promising technology to tackle the challenges in health and social care posed by the growth of the ageing population. The purpose of our study was to explore the current evidence on barriers and enablers for the implementation of humanoid robots in health and social care.
Design: Systematic review of studies entailing hands-on interactions with a humanoid robot.
Setting: From April 2018 to June 2018, databases were searched using a combination of the same search terms for articles published during the last decade. Data collection was conducted by using the Rayyan software, a standardised predefined grid, and a risk of bias and a quality assessment tool.
Participants: Post-experimental data were collected and analysed for a total of 420 participants. Participants comprised: older adults (n=307) aged ≥60 years, with no or some degree of age-related cognitive impairment, residing either in residential care facilities or at their home; care home staff (n=106); and informal caregivers (n=7).Primary outcomes Identification of enablers and barriers to the implementation of socially assistive humanoid robots in health and social care, and consequent insights and impact. Future developments to inform further research.
Results: Twelve studies met the eligibility criteria and were included. None of the selected studies had an experimental design; hence overall quality was low with high risks of biases. Several studies had no comparator, no baseline, small samples, and self-reported measures only. Within this limited evidence base, the enablers found were enjoyment, usability, personalisation and familiarisation. Barriers were related to technical problems, to the robots’ limited capabilities and the negative preconceptions towards the use of robots in healthcare. Factors which produced mixed results were the robot’s human-like attributes, previous experience with technology and views of formal and informal carers.
Conclusions: The available evidence related to implementation factors of socially assistive humanoid robots for older adults is limited, mainly focusing on aspects at individual level, and exploring acceptance of this technology. Investigation of elements linked to the environment, organisation, societal and cultural milieu, policy and legal framework is necessary
A Reference Software Architecture for Social Robots
Social Robotics poses tough challenges to software designers who are required
to take care of difficult architectural drivers like acceptability, trust of
robots as well as to guarantee that robots establish a personalised interaction
with their users. Moreover, in this context recurrent software design issues
such as ensuring interoperability, improving reusability and customizability of
software components also arise.
Designing and implementing social robotic software architectures is a
time-intensive activity requiring multi-disciplinary expertise: this makes
difficult to rapidly develop, customise, and personalise robotic solutions.
These challenges may be mitigated at design time by choosing certain
architectural styles, implementing specific architectural patterns and using
particular technologies.
Leveraging on our experience in the MARIO project, in this paper we propose a
series of principles that social robots may benefit from. These principles lay
also the foundations for the design of a reference software architecture for
Social Robots. The ultimate goal of this work is to establish a common ground
based on a reference software architecture to allow to easily reuse robotic
software components in order to rapidly develop, implement, and personalise
Social Robots