Abstract
This paper is positioned inside a research project investigating elders’ preferences and acceptance toward robots, in order to collect insights for the design and implementation of socially assistive robots. To this aim, short video clips of five manufactured robots (Roomba, Nao, Pepper, Ishiguro, and Erica) were shown to 100 seniors (50 Female) aged 65+ years (average age: 71.34 years, DS: ±5.60). After watching each robot video clip, seniors were administered a short questionnaire assessing their willingness to interact with robots, feelings robots aroused, and duties they would entrust to robots. The questionnaire’s scores were assessed through repeated measures ANOVA in order to ascertain statistically significant differences among seniors’ preferences. A clear uncanny valley effect was identified. The robot Pepper received significantly higher scores than Roomba, Nao, Ishiguro, and Erica on communication skills, ability to remind friendly and pleasant memories, comprehension, and ability to provide emotional support. In addition, Pepper was considered the most suitable, among the five proposed robots, in performing welfare duties for elders, children and disabled, protection and security, and front desk occupations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Brenton, H., Gillies, M., Ballin, D., Chatting D.: The Uncanny Valley: does it exist? In: Proceeding of the Workshop on Human-Animated Characters Interaction at The 19th British HCI Group Annual Conference HCI 2005: The Bigger Picture, Edinburgh (2005)
Broadbent, E., Stafford, R., MacDonald, B.: Acceptance of healthcare robots for the older population: review and future directions. 1, 319–330. Springer
Esposito, A., Esposito, A.M.: On the recognition of emotional vocal expressions: motivations for an holistic approach. Cogn. Process. J. 13(2), 541–550 (2012)
Esposito, A., Esposito, A.M., Vogel, C.: Needs and challenges in human computer interaction for processing social emotional information. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 66, 41–51 (2015)
Esposito, A., Jain, L.C.: Modeling social signals and contexts in robotic socially believable behaving systems. In: Esposito, A., Jain L.C. (eds.) Toward Robotic Socially Believable Behaving Systems Volume II—“Modeling Social Signals”. ISRL series 106, pp. 5–13. Springer, Switzerland
Komatsu, T., Kurosawa, R., Yamada, S.: How does the difference between users’ expectations and perceptions about a robotic agent affect their behavior? Int. J. Soc. Robot. 4, 109–116 (2012)
MacDorman, K.F., Chattopadhyay D.: Reducing consistency in human realism increases the uncanny valley effect; increasing category uncertainty does not. 190–205 (2015). Elsevier
Maldonato, N.M., Dell’Orco, S.: Making decision under uncertainty, emotions, risk and biases. In: Bassis S., Esposito A., Morabito F.C. (eds.) Advances in Neural Networks: Computational and Theoretical Issues. SIST series 37, pp. 293–302. Springer, Switzerland (2015)
Mori, M.: The uncanny valley. Energy 7(4), 33–35 (1970)
Peek, S.T., Wouters, E.J., van Hoof, J., Luijkx, K.G., Boeije, H.R., Vrijhoef, H.J.: Factors influencing acceptance of technology for aging in place: a systematic review. Int. J. Med. Inform. 83(4), 235–248 (2014)
Phillips, E., Ullman, D., de Graaf, M.M.A., Malle, B.F.: What does a robot look like? A multi-site examination of user expectations about robot appearance. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2017 Annual Meeting, pp. 1215–1219
Troncone, A., Palumbo, D., Esposito, A.: Mood effects on the decoding of emotional voices. In: Bassis, S., et al. (eds.), Recent Advances of Neural Network Models and Applications. SIST 26, pp. 325–332. International Publishing, Switzerland
Wang, S., Lilienfeld, S.O., Rochat, P.: The uncanny valley: existence and explanations. Am Psychol. Assoc. 4, 393–407 (2015)
Złotowski, J.A., Sumioka, H., Nishio, S., Glas, D.F., Bartneck, C., Ishiguro, H.: Persistence of the uncanny valley: the influence of repeated interactions and a robot’s attitude on its perception. Front. Psychol. 6, 883 (2015)
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N. 769872 (EMPATHIC) and N. 823907 (MENHIR) and from the project SIROBOTICS that received funding from Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università, e della Ricerca (MIUR), PNR 2015-2020, Decreto Direttoriale 1735 del 13 luglio 2017.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Esposito, A. et al. (2020). Seniors’ Appreciation of Humanoid Robots. In: Esposito, A., Faundez-Zanuy, M., Morabito, F., Pasero, E. (eds) Neural Approaches to Dynamics of Signal Exchanges. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 151. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8950-4_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8950-4_30
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-8949-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-8950-4
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)