This paper proposes a model of technology acceptance that is specifically developed to test the acceptance of assistive social agents by elderly users. The research in this paper develops and tests an adaptation and theoretical extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by explaining intent to use not only in terms of variables related to functional evaluation like perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, but also variables that relate to social interaction. The new model was tested using controlled experiment and longitudinal data collected regarding three different social agents at elderly care facilities and at the homes of older adults. The model was strongly supported accounting for 59-79% of the variance in usage intentions and 49-59% of the variance in actual use. These findings contribute to our understanding of how elderly users accept assistive social agents.
Context: Assistive social robots, a particular type of assistive robotics designed for social interaction with humans could play an important role with respect to health and psychological wellbeing of elderly. Objectives: Assistive social robots are believed to be useful in eldercare for two reasons, a functional one and an affective one. Such robots are developed to function as an interface for elderly to digital technology, and to help increase the quality of life of elderly by providing companionship respectively. There is a growing attention for these devices in the literature. However, no comprehensive review is yet performed to investigate the effectiveness of such robots in the care for elderly. Therefore, we systematically reviewed and analyzed existing literature on the effects of assistive social robots in healthcare for elderly. We focused on the companion function. Data Sources: A systematic search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, PSYCHINFO, The Cochrane Library databases, IEEE, ACM libraries and finally Google Scholar was performed for records through December 2007 to identify articles of all studies with actual subjects aimed to assess the effects of assistive social robots on elderly. This search was completed with information derived from personal expertise, contacts and reports. Study Selection and Data Extraction: Since no randomized controlled trials (RCT)'s have been found within this field of research, all studies reporting effects of assistive robotics in elderly populations were included. Information on study design, interventions, controls, and findings were extracted for each article. In medical journals only a few articles were found, whereas about 50 publications were found in literature on ICT and robotics. Data Synthesis: The identified studies were all published after 2000 indicating the novelty of this area of research. Most of these publications contain the results of studies that report positive effects of assistive social robots on health and psychological well-being of elders. Solid evidence indicating that these effects can indeed be attributed to the actual assistive social robot, its behavior and its functionality is scarce. Conclusions: There is some qualitative evidence as well as limited quantitative evidence of the positive effects of assistive social robots with respect to elderly. The research designs however are not robust enough to establish this. Confounding variables can often not be excluded. This is partly due to the chosen research designs, but also because it is unclear what research methodology is adequate to investigate such effects. Therefore, more work on methods is needed as well as robust, large-scale studies to establish the effects of these devices.
The human robot interaction community is multidisciplinary by nature and has members from social science to engineering backgrounds. In this paper we aim to provide human robot developers with a straightforward toolkit to evaluate users' acceptance of assistive social robots they are designing or developing for elderly care environments. We will explain how we developed the measures for this analysis, provide do's and don'ts in designing the experiments, demonstrate the application of the measures we have developed for this purpose and the analysis and interpretation of the data. As such we hope to engage human robot interaction developers in evaluating the acceptability of their own robot to inform the development process and improve the final robot's design. SI Use PEOU FC PU ANX PENJ ATT Trust ITU PAD PS SP
Abstract-If robotic companions are to be used in the near future by aging adults, they have to be accepted by them. In the process of developing a methodology to measure, predict and explain acceptance of robotic companions, we researched the influence of social abilities, social presence and perceived enjoyment. After an experiment (n=30) that included collecting usage data and a second experiment (n=40) with a robot in a more and less sociable condition we were able to confirm the relevance of these concepts. Results suggest that social abilities contribute to the sense of social presence when interacting with a robotic companion and this leads, through higher enjoyment to a higher acceptance score.
It is generally recognized that non perceptual factors like age, gender, education and computer experience can have a moderating effect on how perception of a technology leads to acceptance of it. In our present research we are exploring the influence of these factors on the acceptance of assistive social robots by older adults. In this short paper we discuss the results of a user study in which a movie of an elderly person using a social assistive robot was shown to older adults. The analysis of the responses give a first indication on if and how these factors relate to the perceptual processes that lead to acceptance.
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