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A Study on the Effectiveness of IT Application Education for Older Adults by Interaction Method of Humanoid Robots

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Education using humanoid robots can have a positive impact in many fields, including in medical or physical training. This study investigated the effects of robot interactions with respect to facial expressions, gestures, voices and their combinations on the education of the elderly regarding information and communications technology (ICT) from functional and emotional perspectives. In this study, the robot's interaction methods were divided into four categories: (1) voice, (2) voice and expression, (3) voice and gesture, and (4) voice and expression and gesture. An experiment involving an educational application with a humanoid robot was conducted with a total of 15 elderly people over the age of 60. The effect of the humanoid robot's interaction method on education was identified by means of subjective survey evaluation and practice performance data analysis, including error rate, task success rate, and number of retrainings. Through the experiment, functional and emotional aspects of effects were measured. The results showed that performance and perceived effectiveness were not significantly affected by the type of robot interaction, but the degree to which the robot felt like it had emotions, the degree to which the robot felt like a human, and the degree to which the robot was friendly were significantly different according to the interaction type employed by the humanoid robot. The best effect was achieved when voice and gesture were used together during tutoring. Recognizing that ICT education using humanoid robots increases interest and participation in education, such robots are concluded to be a suitable method for performing ICT education. In addition, when designing robotic interactions, the use of the robot's voice and gestures together is expected to lead to greater anthropomorphism, resulting in a stronger relationship with humanoid robots.

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

DOI: 10.3390/ijerph191710988

Authors: Sungwook Jung, Sung Hee Ahn, Jiwoong Ha, Sangwoo Bahn

Institutions: Kyung Hee University, Seoul National University

Language: English

Topic: Social Robot Interaction and HRI

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,618