Towards personalized interaction and corrective feedback of a socially assistive robot for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy

A robotic exercise coaching system requires the capability of automatically assessing a patient’s exercise to in teract with a patient and generate corrective feedback. However, even if patients have various physical conditions, most prior work on robotic exercise coaching systems has utilized generic, pre-defined feedback. This paper presents an interactive approach that combines machine learning and rule-based models to automatically assess a patient’s rehabilitation exercise and tunes with patient’s data to generate personalized corrective feedback. To generate feedback when an erroneous motion occurs, our approach applies an ensemble voting method that leverages predictions from multiple frames for frame-level assessment. According to the evaluation with the dataset of three stroke rehabilitation exercises from 15 post-stroke subjects, our interactive approach with an ensemble voting method supports more accurate frame level assessment (p < 0.01), but also can be tuned with held-out user’s unaffected motions to significantly improve the perfor mance of assessment from 0.7447 to 0.8235 average F1-scores over all exercises (p < 0.01). This paper discusses the value of an interactive approach with an ensemble voting method for personalized interaction of a robotic exercise coaching system.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Personality factors and acceptability of socially assistive robotics in teachers with and without specialized training for children with disability

Personality factors can be predictors of acceptability and intention to use new technologies, especially regarding education and care fields in the whole lifespan. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive factors and attitudes of curricular and specialized teachers towards socially assistive robotics and the intention to use robots in teaching activities. In our research, we investigated the impact of the personality factors measured with the Big Five Questionnaire, on acceptability questionnaires derived by Eurobarometer and by the model Unified Theory of the Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), administered respectively before and after showing the possible uses of the robot NAO in education and teaching. The study was conducted in four schools, participants were 114 teachers (52.07 ± 8.22), aged 26 to 68 years, of the primary and middle school level. The results highlight the primary role of the personality factors Openness to Experience and Extraversion for promoting the acceptability and reduce the prejudicial reject regarding the use of educational and assistive robotic technologies. In conclusion, for using at best robotics in education, teachers need to receive appropriate training - also on the basis of their attitudes and personality traits - to learn how to plan their educational activities integrating the robotics tool

Designing robots with the context in mind -- One design does not fit all

Robots' visual qualities (VQs) impact people's perception of their characteristics and affect users' behaviors and attitudes toward the robot. Recent years point toward a growing need for Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) in various contexts and functions, interacting with various users. Since SAR types have functional differences, the user experience must vary by the context of use, functionality, user characteristics, and environmental conditions. Still, SAR manufacturers often design and deploy the same robotic embodiment for diverse contexts. We argue that the visual design of SARs requires a more scientific approach considering their multiple evolving roles in future society. In this work, we define four contextual layers: the domain in which the SAR exists, the physical environment, its intended users, and the robot's role. Via an online questionnaire, we collected potential users' expectations regarding the desired characteristics and visual qualities of four different SARs: a service robot for an assisted living/retirement residence facility, a medical assistant robot for a hospital environment, a COVID-19 officer robot, and a personal assistant robot for domestic use. Results indicated that users' expectations differ regarding the robot's desired characteristics and the anticipated visual qualities for each context and use case.Comment: Accepted to the 15th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotic

Comparing Robot and Human guided Personalization: Adaptive Exercise Robots are Perceived as more Competent and Trustworthy

Schneider S, Kummert F. Comparing Robot and Human guided Personalization: Adaptive Exercise Robots are Perceived as more Competent and Trustworthy. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ROBOTICS. 2020.Learning and matching a user's preference is an essential aspect of achieving a productive collaboration in long-term Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). However, there are different techniques on how to match the behavior of a robot to a user's preference. The robot can be adaptable so that a user can change the robot's behavior to one's need, or the robot can be adaptive and autonomously tries to match its behavior to the user's preference. Both types might decrease the gap between a user's preference and the actual system behavior. However, the Level of Automation (LoA) of the robot is different between both methods. Either the user controls the interaction, or the robot is in control. We present a study on the effects of different LoAs of a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) on a user's evaluation of the system in an exercising scenario. We implemented an online preference learning system and a user-adaptable system. We conducted a between-subject design study (adaptable robot vs. adaptive robot) with 40 subjects and report our quantitative and qualitative results. The results show that users evaluate the adaptive robots as more competent, warm, and report a higher alliance. Moreover, this increased alliance is significantly mediated by the perceived competence of the system. This result provides empirical evidence for the relation between the LoA of a system, the user's perceived competence of the system, and the perceived alliance with it. Additionally, we provide evidence for a proof-of-concept that the chosen preference learning method (i.e., Double Thompson Sampling (DTS)) is suitable for online HRI

Robots in education and care of children with developmental disabilities : a study on acceptance by experienced and future professionals

Research in the area of robotics has made available numerous possibilities for further innovation in the education of children, especially in the rehabilitation of those with learning difficulties and/or intellectual disabilities. Despite the scientific evidence, there is still a strong scepticism against the use of robots in the fields of education and care of people. Here we present a study on the acceptance of robots by experienced practitioners (specialized in the treatment of intellectual disabilities) and university students in psychology and education sciences (as future professionals). The aim is to examine the factors, through the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, that may influence the decision to use a robot as an instrument in the practice. The overall results confirm the applicability of the model in the context of education and care of children, and suggest a positive attitude towards the use of the robot. The comparison highlights some scepticism among the practitioners, who perceive the robot as an expensive and limited tool, while students show a positive perception and a significantly higher willingness to use the robot. From this experience, we formulate the hypothesis that robots may be accepted if more integrated with standard rehabilitation protocols in a way that benefits can outweigh the costs

A framework for user adaptation and profiling for social robotics in rehabilitation

Physical rehabilitation therapies for children present a challenge, and its success—the improvement of the patient’s condition—depends on many factors, such as the patient’s attitude and motivation, the correct execution of the exercises prescribed by the specialist or his progressive recovery during the therapy. With the aim to increase the benefits of these therapies, social humanoid robots with a friendly aspect represent a promising tool not only to boost the interaction with the pediatric patient, but also to assist physicians in their work. To achieve both goals, it is essential to monitor in detail the patient’s condition, trying to generate user profile models which enhance the feedback with both the system and the specialist. This paper describes how the project NAOTherapist—a robotic architecture for rehabilitation with social robots—has been upgraded in order to include a monitoring system able to generate user profile models through the interaction with the patient, performing user-adapted therapies. Furthermore, the system has been improved by integrating a machine learning algorithm which recognizes the pose adopted by the patient and by adding a clinical reports generation system based on the QUEST metricThis work is partially funded by grant RTI2018-099522-B-C43 of FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación - Ministerio de Universidades - Agencia Estatal de Investigació

Socially Assistive Robots for Exercising Scenarios. Studies on group effects, feedback, embodiment and adaption

Schneider S. Socially Assistive Robots for Exercising Scenarios. Studies on group effects, feedback, embodiment and adaption. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2019.Even though positive effects of being physically active are commonly known, only a few parts of the world population are sufficiently ac- tive. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that this problem affects 31% of the adult’s world population and 80% of the adolescent population. Appropriate levels of physical activity (PA) are essential to prevent obesity in childhood and to keep a Quality of Life (QOL) in old age but are also essential to prevent other Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). Thus, physical inactivity is growing into a severe problem globally, and there is a growing need to motivate people to become more physically active during their lifetime. One primary cause that raises PA levels is having a peer or help from professionals. However, having assistance is not possible in every situation. It might be challenging to find and schedule with a partner or to commute to other places. Roboticist introduced Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) as an assistive tool for exercising, cognitive or rehabilitation tasks. This thesis explores SAR in the context of exercising along four features that have been partly targeted but not yet thoroughly investigated. These features are a) the social role of the robot, b) encouragement c) embodiment and d) adaptation. First, this thesis looks at the mo- tivational effects of exercising with SAR concerning features a) - c). Second, this thesis questions how a system can adapt to the user, and whether adaptivity or adaptability is enough to close the gap between user needs and system behavior. I conducted studies that test the dif- ferent features by assessing subjective ratings of the robot as well as measurable motivational variables (e.g., time spent exercising with the robot) in a bodyweight workout scenario. The results show that features a) - c) have a positive influence on user’s exercising time. Additionally, users perceive a robot compan- ion as more likable than a robot instructor or a human partner. Fur- thermore, an adaptive robot increases the associated competence and quality of relationship compared to an adaptable robot. However, the results also show that the robot does not always have to exercise along with the user. In situations where it is not possible, the robot could also only give encouraging feedback. This thesis backs up earlier find- ings of using SAR by replicating motivational group exercising ef- fects found in Human-Human Interaction (HHI). Thus, the evidence that SARs are a suitable tool for rehabilitative interventions increases which may convince health experts to consider SAR as a useful thera- peutic tool. Nevertheless, this thesis evaluated the effects only during short-term interactions. Thus, proving that the found effects are long- lasting is essential for future studies