SAR-Connect: A Socially Assistive Robotic System to Support Activity and Social Engagement of Older Adults
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Multidomain activities that incorporate physical, cognitive, and social stimuli can enhance older adults’ overall health and quality of life. Several robotic platforms have been developed to provide these therapies in a quantifiable manner to complement healthcare personnel in resource-strapped long-term care settings. However, these platforms are primarily limited to one-to-one human–robot interaction (HRI) and thus do not enhance social interaction. In this article, we present a novel HRI framework and a realized platform called socially assistive robotic (SAR)-Connectto foster robot-mediated social interaction among older adults through carefully designed tasks that also incorporate physical and cognitive stimuli. SAR-Connect seamlessly integrates a humanoid robot with a virtual reality-based activity platform and a multimodal data acquisition module including game interaction, audio, visual, and electroencephalography responses of the participants. Results from a laboratory-based user study with older adults indicates the potential ofSAR-Connectthat showed this system could 1) involve one or multiple older adults to perform multidomain activities and provide dynamic guidance, 2) engage them in the robot-mediated task and foster human–human interaction, and 3) quantify their social and activity engagement from multiple sensory modalities.
Source: IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Authors: Jing Fan, Lorraine C. Mion, Linda Beuscher, Akshith Ullal, Paul A. Newhouse, Nilanjan Sarkar
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3190045483