Habit detection within a long-term interaction with a social robot

Long-Term Value of Social Robots through the Eyes of Expert Users

“…While Pepper ( Figure 1) itself has inhabited various labs, shops, and exhibitions across the world for several years, a deployment study of the robot in homes and interviews with people who worked with Pepper in their professional role long-term have been scarce. Aldebaran Robotics studied Pepper by deploying it in ten homes in Europe over eight weeks, with four major conclusions: that the novelty effect was observed, that use patterns were idiosyncratic and not predictable, that some proactivity was preferred in Pepper, and that utility-oriented apps were used more than entertainment-oriented ones [49]. This deployment was conducted with real robots, in one of the intended environments of use (the home), and it was relatively long-term (by HCI study standards), although the time frame explored was relatively short when compared to frameworks of robot acceptance [15,59], with no information about, or exploration of, post-acceptance or persistent value that Pepper brought to its users.…”

“…With combined insights from the literature on social and domestic robots, together with IPAs, the importance of managing expectations [38,45] and perceptions of different populations [20,22,36,38,42,50,61], development [23] and changes over time [15] (including maintenance routines [23,59], and updates to the robots [35]), usefulness [49], personification [41,46], task completion [37], familiarity [18], the overall shape and motion [6,63,65], and context [11,24,40] were all emphasized.…”

“…This design space is different from both the utilitarian approach, where the emphasis is on task completion and ease of use, and the toy-like approach, where the emphasis is on edutainment. Social robots are far from being utilitarian for their social roles [49] due to both technological limitations, and our understanding of social interactions, and how to encode them. The distinction between a utilitarian robot, and a hedonic one is highlighted in several works on domestic robots [14,40], and it is suggested that the distinction should be made clear not only in research, but in the marketing of such robots, so that it is clear to the potential buyer what the purpose of a given robot is [17,35].…”

What Makes a Robot Social? A Review of Social Robots from Fiction to a Home or Hospital Near You

“…Many social robot developers have designed their creations to incorporate human characteristics, while at the same time being careful to avoid imitating human appearance or motion too closely, in order to avoid falling into the Uncanny Valley [5]. While a human-like embodiment as a design feature for social robots is a powerful signal to users that the agent affords social interactions, it also makes the robot more prone to failing to deliver on high expectations regarding the nature of the interaction (e.g., [6,7,8]).…”

“…Participants were disappointed when the robot was not able to go beyond the smart-speaker like single-turn structure of conversation. One of the participants also pointed out that people who interacted with Pepper quickly lost interest, a finding which is echoed in a usability study by Aldebaran (later purchased by SoftBank Robotics), where Pepper was deployed to the homes of users over several weeks [8]. The novelty effect is a common problem in social robotics, and long-term studies have often found a reduced engagement with various robotic platforms over time [23,24].…”