Acceptance Of Robots Research Articles

FACTORS AFFECTING THE ACCEPTANCE OF CARE ROBOTS BY OLDER ADULTS: FOCUSING ON TECHNICAL FACTORS

Abstract Care robots have the potential to support the healthy and independent lives of older adults and alleviate the burden on care workers. However, the potential benefits of care robots can only be realized if they are accepted. Given that most older adults do not have experience with care robots and lack digital literacy, an understanding of the factors affecting the acceptance of care robots is important. The goal of this study was to analyze the factors that affect older adults’ acceptance of care robots by distinguishing the factors into sociodemographic, health, and technical factors. Data were collected from older adults aged 60 or over living in the community of Korea in 2022 (N= 506, mean age=70.11±7.74, women=54.55%). Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to identify the factors related to acceptance of care robots. The results showed that factors influencing older adults’ acceptance of care robots were significant in sociodemographic factors (education and place of residence), health factors (self-reported health and instrumental activities for daily living), and technical factors (digital literacy and technostress). The findings indicate that interventions are needed to increase the acceptance of care robots by vulnerable groups with low levels of education, living in rural areas, and poor health conditions, and that it is also important to increase their digital literacy and lower their technostress. This study would provide valuable guidelines to stakeholders such as service providers, and policymakers to increase the acceptance of care robots and improve the quality of life of older adults.

It feels, therefore it is: Associations between mind perception and mind ascription for social robots

As social robots are increasingly designed with sophisticated simulations of human skills, it becomes essential to understand boundary conditions of people's engagement of them as mindful actors. The present paper reports a comprehensive secondary analysis of six studies (total N = 967) on the relationship between mind perception (evaluation of mental capacities) and mind ascription (explicit assignment of a mind-having status) when people consider a humanoid robot in different scenarios. Results indicate there is a context-independent, moderate link between perceptions of affective mental capacity (i.e., ability to feel emotion) and explicit mind ascription. We further found hints for a weak relationship between perceptions of reality-interaction capacity (i.e., sensory and agentic abilities) and decisions to ascribe mind that may need larger samples in order to be validated. Perceptions of social-moral capacities (i.e., evaluations of people and goals) were not a significant predictor of mind ascription. Overall, these findings highlight the pivotal role played by robots' display of affective engagement with the world for the acceptance of robots as mindful “beings” in human spheres.

The role of perceived risk and information security on customers' acceptance of service robots in the hotel industry

This study proposed and tested a theoretical framework that investigated the influences of perceived risk and information security on hotel customers’ intention to use service robots. In addition, the impacts of self-efficacy, innovativeness, and facilitating conditions on perceived risk and information security were examined. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed model by utilizing data collected from eleven countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey, Spain, Romania, Japan, Israel, India, Greece, Canada, and Brazil. The study results demonstrated that perceived risk had a negative impact on customers’ intention to use service robots while information security had a positive impact. In addition, the study results indicated that self-efficacy negatively influenced perceived risk, and positively influenced perceived information security; and innovativeness and facilitating condition positively influenced information security. The study findings offer several important contributions to the hospitality robotics technology adoption literature and present valuable implications for hospitality practitioners and service robot vendors.

A Review on Robotics and Automation in the 21st Century: Shaping the Future of Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Service Sectors

A detailed examination of the literature reveals the significant effects that automation and robotics have had on the modern industrial, healthcare, and service sectors. This research explores the acceptability, challenges, and advantages of robots in various industries, tracing their evolution from simple machines to extremely intelligent and complex entities today. The report demonstrates how robots have evolved from conventional manufacturing roles to become essential in Industry 4.0, healthcare, and service sectors, utilizing academic research, real business data, and technical advancements. Robots have greatly increased production efficiency in the industrial sector, decreased error margins, and resulted in cost savings and higher-quality goods. The introduction of networked production systems and smart factories highlights the importance of robotics in contemporary manufacturing techniques. In healthcare, robots are revolutionizing the industry by transforming clinical settings, enhancing patient monitoring and diagnostics, and increasing the precision of minimally invasive surgical operations. This change illustrates the potential for robots to completely transform patient care and the healthcare sector as a whole. The study also examines the growing importance of robots in the service sector, where new technologies are altering the way people interact, shop, and entertain themselves. Automation and robotics are redefining how individuals engage with services, highlighting the dynamic relationship between technology and human interaction. This study underscores the potential of robots to revolutionize multiple industries and emphasizes the necessity of further research and adaptation to fully realize these advantages. Automation and robotics are key drivers of technological progress, offering prospects for ongoing innovation and improved productivity, precision, and overall quality across various sectors.

고령자의 자기효능감이 돌봄로봇 수용에 미치는 영향

This study verified the effect of the older adults’ self-efficacy on acceptance of care robots according to the gender groups. This study used the data of the ’2022 Korea Older Adults Technology Acceptance Panel Survey’ conducted by the Department of Gerontology, Kyung Hee University, and multiple regression analysis was conducted by the all and gender groups on 506 older adults (203 males, 276 females) aged 60 or older nationwide. STATA 17.0 statistical program was used for analysis. As a result of the analysis by gender, in the case of men, the higher the technology self-efficacy and general self-efficacy, the higher the acceptance of care robot. In women, it was found that the higher the technology self-efficacy, the higher the education level and household income, and the better the Activities of Daily Living, the higher the acceptance of care robot. This study divided self-efficacy into general self-efficacy and technical self-efficacy and verified the impact of the two self-efficacy on the acceptance of care robots. This study has academic implications in that it divided self-efficacy into general self-efficacy and technical self-efficacy and verified the impact of the two self-efficacy on the acceptance of care robots. In addition, this study has practical implications in that it suggests separate action plans to increase the acceptance of care robots depending on the gender group of the older adults.

Customer acceptance of frontline social robots—Human-robot interaction as boundary condition

From an interactionist perspective, we argue that what happens and how service is delivered during the human-robot interaction may alter the extent to which customers accept service robots. Extending previous research on customer acceptance of service robots and human-robot interaction, we treat the elements during the human-robot interaction process as boundary conditions for the link between service robots' functional and social-emotional capabilities. Specifically, we examine (1) contact frequency between customers and service robots, (2) interdependence among service robots and human service employees, and (3) service complexity, moderate the relationship between service robots' capabilities and customer acceptance. With data collected from 997 customers who have past experience with service robots, we found that the effect of functional and social-emotional capabilities of service robots on customer acceptance are more salient when contact frequency is low rather than high, interdependence among service robots and service employees is high rather than low, and service complexity is low rather than high. Our findings provide new insights into customer acceptance of social robots in the service settings.

Research status of elderly-care robots and safe human-robot interaction methods

Faced with the increasingly severe global aging population with fewer children, the research, development, and application of elderly-care robots are expected to provide some technical means to solve the problems of elderly care, disability and semi-disability nursing, and rehabilitation. Elderly-care robots involve biomechanics, computer science, automatic control, ethics, and other fields of knowledge, which is one of the most challenging and most concerned research fields of robotics. Unlike other robots, elderly-care robots work for the frail elderly. There is information exchange and energy exchange between people and robots, and the safe human-robot interaction methods are the research core and key technology. The states of the art of elderly-care robots and their various nursing modes and safe interaction methods are introduced and discussed in this paper. To conclude, considering the disparity between current elderly care robots and their anticipated objectives, we offer a comprehensive overview of the critical technologies and research trends that impact and enhance the feasibility and acceptance of elderly care robots. These areas encompass the collaborative assistance of diverse assistive robots, the establishment of a novel smart home care model for elderly individuals using sensor networks, the optimization of robot design for improved flexibility, and the enhancement of robot acceptability.

Privacy concerns versus personalisation benefits in social robot acceptance by employees: A paradox theory — Contingency perspective

Acceptance of automation has been a challenge for over a century now. There are several success stories but there are also many failures. Studies exploring robots also go back many decades. Recent technological developments made science fiction movies a reality and we started seeing social robots emerging. This study explored acceptance of social robots by developing an argument that incorporates an individual-level, paradoxical nature of privacy and personalisation into the existing technology acceptance theory. The study accomplished its goals by focusing on employees working in care-providing organisations. The results indicated that both privacy concerns and service personalisation benefits independently and interdependently predict intention to use social robots at work. We also found that an employee's intention to use a social robot is highly dependent on her paradox mindset on both personalisation benefits and privacy concerns.

Social robot for older adults with cognitive decline: a preliminary trial

The number of older adults living alone is rapidly increasing. Loneliness in older adults not only degrade their quality of life but also causes troubles such as heavy burden on the medical staff, especially when cognitive decline is present. Social robots could be used in several ways to reduce such problems. As a first step towards this goal, we introduced conversation robots into the homes of older adults with cognitive decline to evaluate the robot’s availability and acceptance during several months. The study involved two steps, one for evaluating the robustness of the proposed robotic system, and the second one to examine the long-term acceptance of social robots by older adults with cognitive decline living alone. Our data shows that after several weeks of human-robot interaction, the participants continued to use the robot and successfully integrated them into their lives. These results open the possibility of further research involving how sustained interaction can be achieved, as well as which factors contributed to the acceptance of the robot.

Improving the acceptability of social robots: Make them look different from humans.

The social robots market will grow considerably in the coming years. What the arrival of these new kind of social agents means for society, however, is largely unknown. Existing cases of robot abuse point to risks of introducing such artificial social agents (ASAs) without considerations about consequences (risks for the robots and the human witnesses to the abuse). We believe that humans react aggressively towards ASAs when they are enticed into establishing dominance hierarchies. This happens when there is a basis for skill comparison. We therefore presented pairs of robots on which we varied similarity and the degree of stimulatability of their mechanisms/functions with the human body (walking, jumping = simulatable; rolling, floating = non-simulatable). We asked which robot (i) resembled more a human, (ii) possessed more "essentialized human qualities" (e.g. creativity). To estimate social acceptability, participants had also (iii) to predict the outcome of a situation where a robot approached a group of humans. For robots with simulatable functions, rating of essentialized human qualities decreased as human resemblance decreased (jumper < walker). For robots with non-simulable functions, the reversed relation was seen: robots that least resembled humans (floater) scored highest in qualities. Critically, robot's acceptability followed ratings of essentialized human qualities. Humans respond socially to certain morphological (physical aspects) and behavioral cues. Therefore, unless ASAs perfectly mimic humans, it is safer to provide them with mechanisms/functions that cannot be simulated with the human body.

Reconciling the personalization–privacy paradox via DoctorBots: The roles of service robot acceptance model elements and technology anxiety

AbstractThe role of artificial intelligence (AI)‐based DoctorBots in improving healthcare and the medical industry is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. However, contrary to the general view that AI can gradually replace human work, user acceptance of DoctorBots has become an obstacle to the development of AI medical diagnosis. Building on the service robot acceptance model (sRAM), this study investigates the potential of the functional, socioemotional, and relational elements of DoctorBots to reconcile the personalization–privacy paradox, thus enhancing user acceptance. Via two scenario‐based experiments with 398 participants, this study reveals that the negative influence of the personalization–privacy paradox on user acceptance is exacerbated when users' technology anxiety is high. In addition, an online survey of 400 DoctorBot users indicates that ease of use, subjective social norms, social presence, and rapport are effective in addressing both nonpersonalization (NPC) and privacy concerns (PVC). These findings suggest that the healthcare industry can leverage DoctorBots to implement self‐diagnosis. Specifically, DoctorBots' functional elements are effective in mitigating users' NPC, and their relational elements are effective in extenuating users' PVC.

Personality-Based Adaptation of Robot Behaviour: Acceptability Results on Individuals with Cognitive Impairments

We performed a study to evaluate if the acceptance of a social humanoid robot used for monitoring the activities of elderly users with cognitive deficits increased after interacting with the robot. In addition, we evaluated if the robot’s acceptance is improved when the interaction with the robot occurred in different modalities modulated according to each user’s cognitive and personality profile. A group of 7 participants underwent assessment tools for cognitive and personality traits and for the level of acceptability of the robot. They interacted with the robot at their private home for a minimum of two weeks. The interaction with the robot occurred under two different modalities: standard modality where the robot performed tasks by approaching the subject at a fixed pre-defined frequency of interactions, and at fixed pre-defined times; modulated modality where the robot performed tasks by approaching the subject at different frequencies set according to some personality traits and cognitive profile of the user. The results showed no change in the acceptability level of the robot after direct interaction. Still, personality traits such as Neuroticism and Openness influenced the acceptability of the robot in the elderly only before an interaction. At the same time, these personality traits did not seem to influence the acceptability of the new technology after a direct interaction. Different is the case of cognitive profiles and demographic characteristics. Finally, the score on the pleasantness scale was higher when the interaction with the robot was set in modulated modality rather than standard modality. In conclusion, the identification of the personality traits and the cognitive status in the elderly with cognitive deficits seems to be useful to modulate the type and frequency of interaction of the robot with the user to increase the acceptability of the instrument and pleasures in every daily life.

Identifying Preferred Appearance and Functional Requirements of Aged Care Robots Among Older Chinese Immigrants: Cross-Sectional Study.

Older Chinese immigrants constitute the largest older Asian ethnic population in New Zealand. Aging in a foreign land can be complex, presenting increasing challenges for gerontology scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. Older Chinese immigrants are more susceptible to experiencing loneliness and social isolation compared to native older people, primarily due to language, transportation, and cultural barriers. These factors subsequently impact their physical and mental health. With advancements in robotic technology, aged care robots are being applied to support older people with their daily living needs. However, studies on using robots with older immigrants living in the community are sparse. Their preferences for the appearance and function of aged care robots are unclear, which impacts the acceptance and usability of robots, highlighting the need for a user-centered design approach. This study aims to explore older Chinese immigrants' needs and preferences toward the appearance and function of aged care robots and to examine their relationships with the demographic characteristics of participants. A cross-sectional design was used in this study, which was undertaken between March and May 2020. A total of 103 participants completed a web-based survey. The average age of participants was 68.7 (SD 5.5) years. The results suggest that 41.7% (n=43) of the 103 participants preferred a humanlike adult appearance, while 32% (n=33) suggested an animallike appearance. These participants reported higher scores in both rigorousness and friendliness compared to others who preferred different robot appearances. Participants expressed a greater preference for the functions of housework assistance (n=86, 83.5%), language translation (n=79, 76.7%), health monitoring (n=78, 75.7%), facial expressions (n=77, 74.8%), news reading (n=66, 64.1%), and security monitoring (n=65, 63.1%). These preferences were found to be significantly associated with marital status, financial status, and duration of immigration. To support immigrant populations to age well in a foreign country and address the growing shortage of health and social professionals, it is important to develop reliable robotic technology services that are tailored based on the needs and preferences of individuals. We collected and compared the perspectives of immigrant and nonimmigrant participants on using robots to support aging in place. The results on users' needs and preferences inform robotic technology services, indicating a need to prioritize older Chinese immigrants' preference toward aged care robots that perform housework assistance, language translation, and health and safety monitoring, and robots with humanlike features.

Understanding the Connection Among Ikigai, Well-Being, and Home Robot Acceptance in Japanese Older Adults: Mixed Methods Study.

Ikigai (meaning or purpose in life) is a concept understood by most older adults in Japan. The term has also garnered international attention, with recent academic attempts to map it to concepts in the Western well-being literature. In addition, efforts to use social and home robots to increase well-being have grown; however, they have mostly focused on hedonic well-being (eg, increasing happiness and decreasing loneliness) rather than eudaimonic well-being (eg, fostering meaning or purpose in life). First, we explored how Japanese older adults experience ikigai and relate these to concepts in the Western well-being literature. Second, we investigated how a home robot meant to promote ikigai is perceived by older adults. We used a mixed methods research design-including 20 interviews with older adults, a survey of 50 older adults, and 10 interviews with family caregivers. For interviews, we asked questions about older adults' sources of ikigai, happiness, and social support, along with their perception of the robot (QT). For surveys, a number of well-being scales were used, including 2 ikigai scales-ikigai-9 and K-1-and 6 Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System scales, measuring meaning and purpose, positive affect, satisfaction with participation in social roles, satisfaction with participation in discretionary social activities, companionship, and emotional support. Questions related to the perception and desired adoption of the robot and older adults' health status were also included. Our results suggest that health is older adults' most common source of ikigai. Additionally, although self-rated health correlated moderately with ikigai and other well-being measures, reported physical limitation did not. As opposed to social roles (work and family), we found that ikigai is more strongly related to satisfaction with discretionary social activities (leisure, hobbies, and friends) for older adults. Moreover, we found that older adults' sources of ikigai included the eudaimonic aspects of vitality, positive relations with others, contribution, accomplishment, purpose, and personal growth, with the first 3 being most common, and the hedonic aspects of positive affect, life satisfaction, and lack of negative affect, with the first 2 being most common. However, the concept of ikigai was most related to eudaimonic well-being, specifically meaning in life, along the dimension of significance. Finally, we found that Japanese older adults have high expectations of a home robot for well-being, mentioning that it should support them in a multitude of ways before they would likely adopt it. However, we report that those with the highest levels of meaning, and satisfaction with their leisure life and friendships, may be most likely to adopt it. We outline several ways to improve the robot to increase its acceptance, such as improving its voice, adding functional features, and designing it to support multiple aspects of well-being.

Technology Acceptance Models from Different Viewpoints of Caregiver, Receiver, and Care Facility Administrator: Lessons from Long-Term Implementation Using Baby-Like Interactive Robot for Nursing Home Residents with Dementia

The introduction of companion robots into nursing homes has positive effects on older people with dementia (PwD) but increases the physical and psychological burden on the nursing staff, such as learning how to use them, fear of breakdowns, and concern about hygiene, and the concerns of the nursing home administrator, such as increased turnover and reduced quality of care due to this. To solve this problem, it is necessary to investigate the acceptability of robots from the viewpoints of all stakeholders: PwD as receivers, nursing staff as caregivers, and nursing home administrator as a care facility administrator. However, there is still missing hypothesis about how their acceptability is structured and involved with each other. This study proposes three technology acceptance model (TAMs) from the perspectives of PwD, nursing staff, and nursing home administrator. The models are conceptualized based on the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results of our two experiments involving a baby-like interactive robot to stimulate PwD in the same nursing home (one with low acceptance of all stakeholders and the other with their high acceptance) in addition to the comparison with other companion robots. Based on the proposed models, we discuss an integrated TAM for the acceptance of companion robots in long-term care facilities. We also discuss the possibility of applying our approach, which examines the perspectives of various stakeholders on technology acceptance, to other areas such as health care and education, the ethical consideration of introducing a baby-like robot and some limitations.

Acceptance of social robot and its challenges: From privacy calculus perspectives

The aim of this study is to examine human–robot interaction (HRI) from the perspective of security, privacy, as well as social and personal norms. This study also strives to investigate users' hedonic and utilitarian attitudes towards using social robots. A social robot is a physical humanoid robot that communicates and interacts with humans and other devices. Social robots follow social rules and behaviors which make them different from other kinds of robots. They often behave like social partners to humans and have features such as eye-gaze, speech recognition, auto-gestures, and so on. Social robots use different types of sensitive data from the users which could pose security challenges and privacy threats. Not many studies have dealt with human–robot interactions (HRI) from security, privacy, social norms, and personal norms perspectives. With the existing literature as well as privacy calculus, motivational theory, and theory of planned behavior (TPB), a model has been developed conceptually, which was then validated using a sample of 403 users contemplating using social robots in the coming days. The study found that both users' hedonic and utilitarian attitudes impact significantly and positively their usage of social robots.

My Eyes Speak: Improving Perceived Sociability of Autonomous Vehicles in Shared Spaces Through Emotional Robotic Eyes

The ability of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to interact socially with pedestrians poses a significant impact on their integration with urban traffic. This is particularly important for vehicle-pedestrian shared spaces due to increased social requirements in comparison to vehicular roads. Current pedestrian experience in shared spaces suffers from negative attitudes towards AVs and the consequently low acceptability of AVs in these spaces. HRI work shows that the acceptability of robots in public spaces can be positively impacted by their perceived sociability (i.e., possessing social skills), which can be enhanced by their ability to express emotions. Inspired by this approach, we follow a systematic process to design emotional expressions for AVs using the headlight ("eye'') area and investigate their impact on perceived sociability of AVs in shared spaces, by conducting expert focus groups (N=12) and an online video-based user study (N=106). Our findings confirm that the perceived sociability of AVs can be enhanced by emotional expressions indicated through emotional eyes. We further discuss implications of our findings for improving pedestrian experience and attitude in shared spaces and highlight opportunities to use AVs' emotional expressions as a new external communication strategy for future research.

Advancing the design of trustworthy robots for older adults in home environments: A participatory design approach

Assistive robots have the potential to support independence for older adults with mobility limitations and to alleviate the demands of their care partners. Several design considerations are required to ensure that the users can successfully rely on the robot to carry out their tasks. Therefore, building trustworthy robots is necessary for wider acceptance of these assistive robots. Using a participatory design approach, we assessed various aspects involved in advancing the design of a trustworthy robot in home environments. This is a case study focused on supporting an older adult with mobility limitations and his care partner. Through several iterations of co-active development as a team, most of the tasks were accomplished to meet the needs of the older adult couple interacting with the robot. Our approach highlighted usability challenges, the merits of a multidimensional approach in evaluating trust, and co-design strategies to improve the trustworthiness of the robot.

Technology Acceptance of a Social Robot (LOVOT) Among Single Older Adults in Hong Kong and Singapore: Protocol for a Multimethod Study.

Given the rapidly aging nature of our global population, policy makers around the world are now emphatically promoting active aging. To address the psychosocial needs of older persons and support active aging, researchers are exploring the use of assistive technologies, specifically social robots as companions. However, there is limited evidence on the efficacy of social robots in promoting active aging for older people in the Hong Kong and Singapore contexts. This study presents the protocol of a study that investigates the acceptance and quality of interaction between a Japanese social robot, LOVOT, and single older adults in Hong Kong and Singapore. We used a baseline assessment to measure the primary outcome, participants' acceptance of technology, and a sense of loneliness, namely, the participants' differences in responses to LOVOT before and following their interaction with the social robot in this multimethod study design. The baseline assessment consisted of the Qualtrics survey, which measures senior technology acceptance, loneliness, older people's quality of life, subjective happiness, cultural values, willingness to pay, and demographic characteristics, along with the LOVOT's sociability and system usability. In the study, participants interacted with LOVOT in 3 sessions before being surveyed to measure the older people's acceptance and attitudes toward LOVOT. A pre-social robot intervention also occurred in the first session. The study was conducted in both Hong Kong and Singapore. A total of 15 single older adults (ie, individuals who live alone) from Hong Kong and another 15 from Singapore were recruited. Participants were 60-75 years of age, lived by themselves, and had no known cognitive or mental issues. The study began recruiting in March 2022, and recruitment was completed at the end of October 2022. Data collection and data set construction were completed at the end of January 2023. Analysis of the data is currently being conducted, and we plan to publish the results by mid-2023. At an individual level, the study will clarify if LOVOT influences single older adults' psychosocial well-being by reducing their loneliness. At a community level, the study's findings will illustrate whether LOVOT can provide increased social connectedness while decreasing individual loneliness. Last, this study's conclusions can inform policy makers to provide social robots to older people to improve their quality of life. Findings can also inform gerontechnology developers on which aspects and cultural considerations to take into account for future inventions. DERR1-10.2196/48618.

Are social robots the solution for shortages in rehabilitation care? Assessing the acceptance of nurses and patients of a social robot

Social robots are upcoming innovations in the healthcare sector. Currently, those robots are merely used for entertaining and accompanying people, or facilitating telepresence. Social robots have the potential to perform more added value tasks within healthcare. So, the aim of our paper was to study the acceptance of a social robot in a rehabilitation centre. This paper reports on three studies conducted with the Pepper robot. We first conducted an acceptance study in which patients (N = 6) and nurses (N = 10) performed different tasks with the robot and rated their acceptance of the robot at different time points. These participants were also interviewed afterwards to gather more qualitative data. The second study conducted was a flash mob study in which patients (N = 23) could interact with the robot via a chatbot and complete a questionnaire. Afterwards, 15 patients completed a short evaluation questionnaire about the easiness and intention to use the robot and possible new functionalities for a social robot. Finally, a Social Return on Investment analysis was conducted to assess the added value of the Pepper robot. Considering the findings from these three studies, we conclude that the use of the Pepper robot for health-related tasks in the context a rehabilitation centre is not yet feasible as major steps are needed to have the Pepper robot able to take over these health-related tasks.