Recent technological advances enabled modern robots to become part of our daily life. In particular, assistive robotics emerged as an exciting research topic that can provide solutions to improve the ...quality of life of elderly and vulnerable people. This paper introduces the robotic platform developed in the ENRICHME project, with particular focus on its innovative perception and interaction capabilities. The project’s main goal is to enrich the day-to-day experience of elderly people at home with technologies that enable health monitoring, complementary care, and social support. The paper presents several modules created to provide cognitive stimulation services for elderly users with mild cognitive impairments. The ENRICHME robot was tested in three pilot sites around Europe (Poland, Greece, and UK) and proven to be an effective assistant for the elderly at home.
For more socially natural interactions between robots and humans there is a need for the robots to detect and understand the current internal state of the individuals they interact with. In this ...paper, we investigate the impact of personality, user sensory profile, and morningness–eveningness type of an individual on the variation of different physiological parameters (i.e., blinking, galvanic skin response, facial temperature variation), as well as the performance in a non-verbal word-color Stroop task. The TIAGo humanoid robot displayed two interaction styles that are based on visual and auditory stimuli. The visual and auditory stimuli used by the robot are in accordance with the user sensory profile. We report the results of a within participants study carried out with 24 participants. Our results show that personality, user sensory profile, and morningness–eveningness type have an impact on the variation of the chosen physiological parameters. Furthermore, the interaction style of the robot has an influence on the variation of the physiological parameters.
Research related to regulatory focus theory has shown that the way in which a message is conveyed can increase the effectiveness of the message. While different research fields have used this theory, ...in human-robot interaction (HRI), no real attention has been given to this theory. In this paper, we investigate it in an in the wild scenario. More specifically, we are interested in how individuals react when a robot suddenly appears at their office doors. Will they interact with it or will they ignore it? We report the results from our experimental study in which the robot approaches 42 individuals. Twenty-nine of them interacted with the robot, while the others either ignored it or avoided any interaction with it. The robot displayed two types of behavior (i.e., promotion or prevention). Our results show that individuals that interacted with a robot that matched their regulatory focus type interacted with it significantly longer than individuals that did not experience regulatory fit. Other qualitative results are also reported, together with some reactions from the participants.
For more socially natural interactions between robots and humans there is a need for the robots to detect and understand the current internal state of the individuals they interact with. In this ...paper, we investigate the impact of personality, user sensory profile, and morningness–eveningness type of an individual on the variation of different physiological parameters (i.e., blinking, galvanic skin response, facial temperature variation), as well as the performance in a non-verbal word-color Stroop task. The TIAGo humanoid robot displayed two interaction styles that are based on visual and auditory stimuli. The visual and auditory stimuli used by the robot are in accordance with the user sensory profile. We report the results of a within participants study carried out with 24 participants. Our results show that personality, user sensory profile, and morningness–eveningness type have an impact on the variation of the chosen physiological parameters. Furthermore, the interaction style of the robot has an influence on the variation of the physiological parameters.
Enabling robots to determine how physiological parameters vary in relation to the profile of an individual can lead to a better adaptation of the behavior of the robot to the needs of the individual ...it interacts with. This paper investigates how physiological parameters (i.e., blinking, galvanic skin response (GSR), facial temperature variation) vary in a news reading task, based on various types of stimuli (i.e., auditory and visual) that TIAGo robot uses to present the news. The results from a within participant study with 11 participants are reported. We also consider the impact of personality and the user sensory profile (based on Adult and Adolescent Sensory Profile (AASP)) for the physiological parameters variation. Our results show that blinking is the main physiological parameter that varies in the non-stressing task of news reading.
In the context of a worldwide aging population, it is important to find solutions to help the elderly maintain their cognitive functions. This research was done in the context of the ENRICHME. We ...investigate the outcome of a 5 day intensive cognitive stimulation with an elderly individual. Each day was composed of two sessions (one at 11am, and one at 3pm). During each session the participant played three cognitive games (i.e., digit cancellation, integer matrix task, Stroop game), two of them having two difficulty levels. The mood of the participant was also recorded before and after each interaction session. Evidence was found that even after a few sessions, the performance of the participant increased for all games. The performance of each game and each difficulty level was analyzed based on the interaction time (1lam or 3pm) and the interaction day. A detailed analysis of the performance is presented together with a discussion of these results.
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