Abstract
We present a socially assistive robot (SAR) system designed to engage elderly users in physical exercise. We discuss the system approach, design methodology, and implementation details, which incorporate insights from psychology research on intrinsic motivation, and we present five clear design principles for SAR-based therapeutic interventions. We then describe the system evaluation, consisting of a multi-session user study with older adults (n = 33), to evaluate the effectiveness of our SAR exercise system and to investigate the role of embodiment by comparing user evaluations of similar physically and virtually embodied coaches. The results validate the system approach and effectiveness at motivating physical exercise in older adults according to a variety of user performance and outcomes measures. The results also show a clear preference by older adults for the physically embodied robot coach over the virtual coach in terms of enjoyableness, helpfulness, and social attraction, among other factors.
- American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2010). Nursing shortage fact sheet {Fact sheet}.Google Scholar
- American Health Care Association. (2008). Summary of 2007 AHCA survey nursing staff vacancy and turnover in nursing facilities {Report}.Google Scholar
- Bainbridge, W. A., Hart, J. W., Kim, E. S., & Scassellati, B. (2011). The benefits of interactions with physically present robots over video-displayed agents. International Journal of Social Robotics, 3(1), 41--52.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Balakrishnan, V., & Yeow, P. (2007). Texting satisfaction: Does age and gender make a difference? International Journal of Computer Science and Security, 1(1), 85--96.Google Scholar
- Bartneck, C. (2003). Interacting with an embodied emotional character. In Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces (pp. 55--60). New York: ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Baum, E., Jarjoura, D., Polen, A., Faur, D., & Rutecki, G. (2003). Effectiveness of a group exercise program in a long-term care facility: A randomized pilot trial. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 4(2), 74--80.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bickmore, T. W., & Picard, R. W. (2005). Establishing and maintaining long-term human-computer relationships. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 12(2), 293--327. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bickmore, T., Schulman, D., & Yin, L. (2010). Maintaining engagement in long-term interventions with relational agents. International Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence, 24(6), 648--666. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Buerhaus, P. (2008). Current and future state of the US nursing workforce. JAMA, 300, 2422.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Department of Health and Human Services.Google Scholar
- Colcombe, S., & Kramer, A. (2003). Fitness effects on the cognitive function of older adults. Psychological Science, 14, 125.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Colcombe, S., Kramer, A., Erickson, K., Scalf, P., McAuley, E., Cohen, N., . . . & Elavsky, S. (2004). Cardiovascular fitness, cortical plasticity, and aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101(9), 3316--3321.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). The evolving self: A psychology for the third millennium. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
- Dawe, D., & Moore-Orr, R. (1995). Low-intensity, range-of-motion exercise: Invaluable nursing care for elderly patients. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 21, 675--681.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
- Dienstbier, R. A., & Leak, G. K. (1976). Effects of monetary reward on maintenance of weight loss: An extension of the overjustification effect. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
- Dubowsky, S., Genot, F., Godding, S., Kozono, H., Skwersky, A., Yu, H., & Shen Yu, L. (2000). PAMM - a robotic aid to the elderly for mobility assistance and monitoring. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1, 570--576.Google Scholar
- Fasola, J., & Matarić, M. J. (2010a). Robot motivator: Increasing user enjoyment and performance on a physical/cognitive task. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning, 274--279.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Fasola, J. & Matarić, M. J. (2010b). Robot exercise instructor: A socially assistive robot system to monitor and encourage physical exercise for the elderly. 19th IEEE International Symposium in Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 416--421.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Fasola, J. & Matarić, M. J. (2012). Using socially assistive human-robot interaction to motivate physical exercise for older adults. In T. Kanade (Ed.), Proceedings of the IEEE, Special Issue on Quality of Life Technology, 100(8), 2512--2526.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Feil-Seifer, D. J., & Matarić, M. J. (2009). Towards the integration of socially assistive robots into the lives of children with ASD. Paper presented at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Workshop on Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society, San Diego, CA.Google Scholar
- Feil-Seifer, D. J., & Matarić, M. J. (2010). Using proxemics to evaluate human-robot interaction. Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 143--144. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fisher, C. D. (1978). The effects of personal control, competence, and extrinsic reward systems on intrinsic motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 21, 273--288.Google ScholarCross Ref
- French, B., Tyamagundlu, D., Siewiorek, D., Smailagic, A., & Ding, D. (2008). Towards a virtual coach for manual wheelchair users. Proceedings of International IEEE Symposium of Wearable Computers, 77--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fujiyoshi, H., & Lipton, A. (1998, October). Real-time human motion analysis by image skeletonization. Proceedings of the Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision. Google ScholarDigital Library
- George, L., Blazer, D., Hughes, D., & Fowler, N. (1989). Social support and the outcome of major depression. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 478--485.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Heerink, M., Kröse, B., Evers, V., & Wielinga, B. (2010). Assessing acceptance of assistive social agent technology by older adults: The Almere Model. International Journal of Social Robotics, 2(4), 361--375.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jenkins, O. C., Chu, C., & Matarić, M. J. (2004). Nonlinear spherical shells for approximate principal curves skeletonization. (University of Southern California Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems Technical Report, CRES-04--004).Google Scholar
- Jung, Y., & Lee, K. M. (2004). Effects of physical embodiment on social presence of social robots. Proceedings of Presence, 2004, 80--87.Google Scholar
- Kang, N., & Yoon, W. (2008). Age- and experience-related user behavior differences in the use of complicated electronic devices. International Journal Human-Computer Studies, 66(6), 425--437. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kidd, C., Taggart, W., & Turkle, S. (2006). A sociable robot to encourage social interaction among the elderly. International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 3972--3976.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Kidd, C. D., & Breazeal, C. (2008). Robots at home: Understanding long-term human-robot interaction. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 3230--3235.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lee, K. M. (2004). Presence, explicated. Communication Theory, 14(1), 27--50.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Matarić, M. J., Eriksson, J., Feil-Seifer, D. J., & Winstein, C. J. (2007). Socially assistive robotics for post-stroke rehabilitation. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 4(5).Google Scholar
- Matsusaka, Y., Fujii, H., Okano, T., & Hara, I. (2009). Health exercise demonstration robot TAIZO and effects of using voice command in robot-human collaborative demonstration. The 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 472--477.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McCroskey, J. C., & McCain, T. A. (1974). The measurement of interpersonal attraction. Speech Monographs, 41, 261--266.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McMurdo, M. D., & Rennie, L. M. (1993). A controlled trial of exercise by residents of old people's homes. Age and Ageing, 22, 11.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Moak, Z. B., & Agrawal, A. (2010). The association between perceived interpersonal social support and physical and mental health: Results from the national epidemiological survey on alcohol and related conditions. Journal of Public Health, 32, 191--201.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Montemerlo, M., Pineau, J., Thrun, S., & Varma, V. (2002). Experiences with a mobile robotics guide for the elderly. Proceedings of the AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 587--592. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Paykel, E. (1994). Life events, social support and depression. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 89, 50--58.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Poresky, R. H., Hendrix, C., Mosier, J. E., & Samuelson, M. (1987). Companion animal bonding scale: Internal reliability and construct validity. Psychological Reports, 60, 743--746.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Powers, A., Kiesler, S., Fussell, S., & Torrey, C. (2007). Comparing a computer agent with a humanoid robot. Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (pp. 145--152). New York: ACM. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Spirduso, W., & Clifford, P. (1978). Replication of age and physical activity effects on reaction and movement time. Journal of Gerontology, 33, 26.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stansfeld, S., Rael, G., Head, J., Shipley, M., & Marmot, M. (1997). Social support and psychiatric sickness absence: A prospective study of British civil servants. Psychological Medicine, 27(1), 35--48.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stice, E., Ragan, J., & Randall, P. (2004). Prospective relations between social support and depression: Differential direction of effects for parent and peer support? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 155--159.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tapus, A., Tapus, C., & Matarić, M. J. (2008). User-robot personality matching and robot behavior adaptation for post-stroke rehabilitation therapy. Intelligent Service Robotics, 1(2), 169--183.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tapus, A., Tapus, C., & Matarić, M. (2009). The use of socially assistive robots in the design of intelligent cognitive therapies for people with dementia. International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (pp. 924--929). IEEE: Kyoto, Japan.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Thomas, V., & Hageman, P. (2003). Can neuromuscular strength and function in people with dementia be rehabilitated using resistance-exercise training? Results from a preliminary intervention study. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 58, M746.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tway, D. C. (1994). A construct of trust (Unpublished dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
- Vallerand, R. J. (1983). Effect of differential amounts of positive verbal feedback on the intrinsic motivation of male hockey players. Journal of Sport Psychology, 5, 100--107.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Vallerand, R. J., & Reid, G. (1984). On the causal effects of perceived competence on intrinsic motivation: A test of cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Sport Psychology, 6, 94--102.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wada, K., Shibata, T., Saito, T., & Tanie, K. (2002). Analysis of factors that bring mental effects to elderly people in robot assisted activity. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2, 1152--1157.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wainer, J., Feil-Seifer, D. J., Shell, D. A., & Matarić, M. J. (2006). The role of physical embodiment in human-robot interaction. IEEE Proceedings of the International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 117--122.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wainer, J., Feil-Seifer, D. J., Shell, D. A., & Matarić, M. J. (2007). Embodiment and human-robot interaction: A task-based perspective. IEEE Proceedings of the International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 872--877.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Waldherr, S., Thrun, S., Romero, R., & Margaritis, D. (1998). Template-based recognition of pose and motion gestures on a mobile robot. Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 977--982. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Weinberg, R. S., & Ragan, J. (1979). Effects of competition, success/failure, and sex on intrinsic motivation. Research Quarterly, 50, 503--510.Google Scholar
- Wren, C. R., Azarbayejani, A., Darrell, T., & Pentland, A. P. (1997). Pfinder: Realtime tracking of the human body. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 19(7), 780--785. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- A socially assistive robot exercise coach for the elderly
Recommendations
Meal-time with a socially assistive robot and older adults at a long-term care facility
Special Issue on HRI System StudiesAs people get older, their ability to perform basic self-maintenance activities can be diminished due to the prevalence of cognitive and physical impairments or as a result of social isolation. The objective of our work is to design socially assistive ...
An Autonomous Robot-to-Group Exercise Coach at a Senior Living Community: A Study in Human-Robot Interaction
A NAO humanoid robot is programmed to act as an autonomous exercise instructor at a senior living community. In an on-site session, the robot does i a warm-up routine in which the robot directs participants to ask it to perform various tasks such as ...
Differences between Young and Old Users when Interacting with a Humanoid Robot: A Qualitative Usability Study
HRI '18: Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot InteractionThere is a growing body of knowledge on how people interact with robots, but limited information on the difference between young and old adults in their preferences when interacting with humanoid robots. Our goals in the current study were: (1) to ...
Comments