Paper Info
Title
Companionship Is Not a Function: The Effect of a Novel Robotic Object on Healthy Older Adults' Feelings of "Being-Seen"
Abstract
One of the challenges faced by healthy older adults is experiencing feelings of not "being-seen". Companion robots, commonly designed with zoomorphic or humanoid appearance show success among clinical older adults, but healthy older adults find them degrading. We present the design and implementation of a novel non-humanoid robot. The robot's primary function is a cognitive word game. Social interaction is conveyed as a secondary function, using non-verbal gestures, inspired by dancers' movement. In a lab study, 39 healthy older adults interacted with the prototype in 3 conditions: Companion-Function; Game-Function; and No-Function. Results show the non-verbal gestures were associated with feelings of "being-seen", and willingness to accept the robot into their home was influenced by its function, with game significantly higher than companion. We conclude that robot designers should further explore the potential of non-humanoid robots as a new class of companion robots, with a primary function that is not companionship.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1145/3313831.3376411
CHI '20: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Honolulu HI USA April, 2020
DocType
ISBN
Citations 
Conference
978-1-4503-6708-0
3
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.40
0
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Oren Zuckerman141340.55
Dina Walker230.40
Andrey Grishko3153.51
Tal Moran443925.36
Chen Levy530.40
Barak Lisak630.40
Iddo Yehoshua Wald772.54
Hadas Erel8137.50