Socially Assistive Robots: Measuring Older Adults' Perceptions

Abstract

To address manpower shortages, health care leaders recommend technology, including robots, to facilitate and augment processes for delivery of efficient, safe care. Little is known regarding older adults’ perceptions of socially assistive robots (SARs). Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use Technology framework, a survey was developed and tested for capturing older adults’ likelihood to use SARs. The Robot Acceptance Survey (RAS) comprises three subscales: Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, and Attitude. Older adults completed the RAS pre- and post-experimental procedure with a SAR. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the subscales ranged from 0.77 to 0.89. Subscales were sensitive to change, with more positive reactions after exposure to SAR activities. Future studies must identify robotic programming capable of providing cognitive, physical, and social assistance, as well as person-, activity-, situation-, and robot-specific factors that will influence older adults’ acceptance of SARs.

Enablers and barriers to the implementation of socially assistive humanoid robots in health and social care: a systematic review

“…A total of 12 studies were included in our analyses: 6 mixed-method, non-randomised user experience trials30–35; 2 pre-post experimental surveys36 37; 1 mixed-method, longitudinal experience trial38; 2 post-experimental surveys39 40; and 1 ethnographic study41 (see Figure 1).…”

“…Most studies had no comparator and no baseline 30–35 38 40 41. Additional methodological limitations affecting the non-randomised, quasi-experimental design of the studies were: very small samples’ sizes, with only one study involving more than 100 participants38; and self-reported measures,30 34–37 39 40 not always in combination with observation and/or data retrieved from the robot 31–33 38. Seven studies33–35 37 38 40 41 used validated instruments informed by existing theoretical models44–47; two studies reported the drop-out rate but did not mention the handling of missing data 32 37.…”

“…Three studies included older adults affected by dementia and other conditions of ageing-related, cognitive impairment 31 32 38. One study compared older adults affected by mild cognitive impairment with a cognitively intact healthy (CIH) group,33 whereas another one did not compare the two groups 36. Five studies selected CIH older adults,30 34 35 40 41 whereas in another one participants’ condition was not reported 39.…”

“…Since one study did not report the gender of the 55 older adults taking part in the study,41 out of 365 participants, 69% were women. Participants’ level of education was only considered in three studies where over 80% of participants had at least a bachelor’s degree 33 36 39…”

What Makes a Social Robot Good at Interacting with Humans?

“…Studies have shown that prior experience with robots leads to higher levels of trust and more positive attitudes towards social robots [48][49][50][51][52]. In an experiment measuring older adults' acceptance of the social robot, NAO, participants tended to be neutral in their perceptions of NAO prior to interactions, but statistically significantly more positive after 30-60 min sessions with NAO [53]. However, this tendency of acceptance of a social robot may vary depending on the generation of users.…”