The rapidly ageing population is placing increasing strain on healthcare services. Robots have been proposed as a way to assist people to stay healthy and safe in their own homes. However, despite the need for such assistive devices and the success of some healthcare robots, other robots have had a poor response. This article reviews the literature about human responses to healthcare robots and summarises the variables that have been found to influence responses. It may be possible to increase acceptance of healthcare robots by properly assessing the needs of the human user and then matching the robot’s role, appearance and behaviour to these needs. Because robots have limitations in their abilities, another way to increase acceptance may be to modify the expectations of users to better match robots’ abilities. More research needs to investigate potential users’ needs and expectations in specific situations and whether interventions to increase the match between robot and human can increase acceptance.

Acceptance of Healthcare Robots for the Older Population: Review and Future Directions

Persuasive Robotics is the study of persuasion as it applies to human-robot interaction (HRI). Persuasion can be generally defined as an attempt to change another's beliefs or behavior. The act of influencing others is fundamental to nearly every type of social interaction. Any agent desiring to seamlessly operate in a social manner will need to incorporate this type of core human behavior. As in human interaction, myriad aspects of a humanoid robot's appearance and behavior can significantly alter its persuasiveness - this work will focus on one particular factor: gender. In the current study, run at the Museum of Science in Boston, subjects interacted with a humanoid robot whose gender was varied. After a short interaction and persuasive appeal, subjects responded to a donation request made by the robot, and subsequently completed a post-study questionnaire. Findings showed that men were more likely to donate money to the female robot, while women showed little preference. Subjects also tended to rate the robot of the opposite sex as more credible, trustworthy, and engaging. In the case of trust and engagement the effect was much stronger between male subjects and the female robot. These results demonstrate the importance of considering robot and human gender in the design of HRI.

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Persuasive Robotics: The influence of robot gender on human behavior

Previous research on gender effects in robots has largely ignored the role of facial cues. We fill this gap in the literature by experimentally investigating the effects of facial gender cues on stereotypical trait and application ascriptions to robots. As predicted, the short-haired male robot was perceived as more agentic than was the long-haired female robot, whereas the female robot was perceived as more communal than was the male counterpart. Analogously, stereotypically male tasks were perceived more suitable for the male robot, relative to the female robot, and vice versa. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that gender stereotypes, which typically bias social perceptions of humans, are even applied to robots. Implications for design-related decisions are discussed. jasp_937 2213..2230 Imagine the following scenario that takes place several decades in the future: By then, both authors of this work might be senior citizens, and the same might hold true for our readers. In spite of grieving lost youth, however, imagine that each senior citizen of this future society would be equipped with a personal robot assistant that would take care of everyday life chores, such as personal care, household maintenance, and other conveniences for you. Your personal robot assistant would facilitate everyday life by being able to support you in any possible way. What could your robot assistant look like, and why did designers opt for this particular appearance? Would your companion’s look affect your perceptions of its “personality” and capabilities? The present research focuses on exactly these questions, as we address the issues of design choices in robots and their consequences for the perception of those robots. It is clear that, to date, the scenario outlined here has not yet been fully realized. Nevertheless, taking into account the interdisciplinary effort of international scientists in social robotics, engineering, computer sciences, psychology, and related fields, such a vision will sooner or later become

(S)he's Got the Look: Gender Stereotyping of Robots1

People’s physical embodiment and presence increase their salience and importance. We predicted people would anthropomorphize an embodied humanoid robot more than a robot–like agent, and a collocated more than a remote robot. A robot or robot–like agent interviewed participants about their health. Participants were either present with the robot/agent, or interacted remotely with the robot/agent projected life–size on a screen. Participants were more engaged, disclosed less undesirable behavior, and forgot more with the robot versus the agent. They ate less and anthropomorphized most with the collocated robot. Participants interacted socially and attempted conversational grounding with the robot/agent though aware it was a machine. Basic questions remain about how people resolve the ambiguity of interacting with a humanlike nonhuman. By virtue of our shared global fate and similar DNA, we humans increasingly appreciate our similarity to nature’s living things. At the same time, we want machines, animals, and plants to meet our needs. Both impulses perhaps motivate the increasing development of humanlike robots and software agents. In this article, we examine social context moderation of anthropometric interactions between people and humanlike machines. We studied whether an embodied humanlike robot would elicit stronger anthropomorphic interactions than would a software agent, and whether physical presence moderated this effect. At the outset, robots and agents differ from ordinary computer programs in that they have autonomy, interact with the environment, and initiate tasks (Franklin & Graesser, 1996). The marriage of artificial intelligence and computer science has made possible robots and agents with humanlike capabilities, such as lifelike gestures and speech. Typically, “robot” refers to a physically–embodied system whereas “agent” refers to a software system. Examples of humanlike robots are NASA’s Robonaut—a humanoid that can hand tools to an astronaut (robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/robonaut.html), Honda’s Asimo, and Hiroshi Ishiguro’s

http://hcii.s3.amazonaws.com/ppr/papers/4-kiesler.pdf

Anthropomorphic Interactions with a Robot and Robot–like Agent

Anthropomorphism is a phenomenon that describes the human tendency to see human-like shapes in the environment. It has considerable consequences for people’s choices and beliefs. With the increased presence of robots, it is important to investigate the optimal design for this technology. In this paper we discuss the potential benefits and challenges of building anthropomorphic robots, from both a philosophical perspective and from the viewpoint of empirical research in the fields of human–robot interaction and social psychology. We believe that this broad investigation of anthropomorphism will not only help us to understand the phenomenon better, but can also indicate solutions for facilitating the integration of human-like machines in the real world.

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Anthropomorphism: Opportunities and Challenges in Human-Robot Interaction

A conversational robot can take on different personas that have more or less common ground with users. With more common ground, communication is more efficient. We studied this process experimentally. A "male" or "female" robot queried users about romantic dating norms. We expected users to assume a female robot knows more about dating norms than a male robot. If so, users should describe dating norms efficiently to a female robot but elaborate on these norms to a male robot. Users, especially women discussing norms for women, used more words explaining dating norms to the male robot than to a female robot. We suggest that through simple changes in a robot's persona, we can elicit different levels of information from users-less if the robot's goal is efficient speech, more, if the robot's goal is redundancy, description, explanation, and elaboration.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/publications/2005pdfs/eliciting-information-people-gendered-humanoid-robot.pdf

S. Lim

Papers

Eliciting information from people with a gendered humanoid robot