Investigating the preferences of older adults concerning the design elements of a companion robot: Analysis on type, weight and material of companion robot

Young Hoon Oh; Jaewoong Kim; Da Young Ju

doi:10.1075/is.18070.oh

Investigating the preferences of older adults concerning the design elements of a companion robot: Analysis on type, weight and material of companion robot

Young Hoon Oh, Jaewoong Kim, Da Young Ju

Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Researchers have reported that companion robots have had positive effects on older adults with depression. However, there has been little quantitative analysis on the relationship between robot design and depression. To address this, we surveyed 191 older adults and investigated the impact of age, gender and depression level on design preferences for companion robots. We focused on toy-sized companion robots and evaluated three design elements: type, weight and material. The findings show that baby-type robots were the most preferred by older adults. They favoured the lightest weights and microfibre materials, regardless of the independent variables. Moreover, robot weight preferences varied significantly with the level of depression. Highly depressed older adults disliked heavy robots. These preliminary findings suggest that companion robots need to be designed with careful consideration of their physical characteristics and potential psychological effects.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	426-454
Number of pages	29
Journal	Interaction Studies
Volume	20
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18070.oh
Publication status	Published - 2019 Nov 18

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by Research Program To Solve Social Issues of the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (NRF-2017M3C8A8091770). This research was supported by the MSIT(Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the “ICT Consilience Creative Program” (IITP-2019-2017-0-01015) supervised by the IITP(Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).

Funding Information:
This research was supported by Research Program To Solve Social Issues of the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (NRF-2017M3C8A8091770). This research was supported by the MSIT(Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ?ICT Consilience Creative Program? (IITP-2019-2017-0-01015) supervised by the IITP(Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).

Publisher Copyright:
© John Benjamins Publishing Company

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Communication
Language and Linguistics
Animal Science and Zoology
Linguistics and Language
Human-Computer Interaction

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10.1075/is.18070.oh

Cite this

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abstract = "Researchers have reported that companion robots have had positive effects on older adults with depression. However, there has been little quantitative analysis on the relationship between robot design and depression. To address this, we surveyed 191 older adults and investigated the impact of age, gender and depression level on design preferences for companion robots. We focused on toy-sized companion robots and evaluated three design elements: type, weight and material. The findings show that baby-type robots were the most preferred by older adults. They favoured the lightest weights and microfibre materials, regardless of the independent variables. Moreover, robot weight preferences varied significantly with the level of depression. Highly depressed older adults disliked heavy robots. These preliminary findings suggest that companion robots need to be designed with careful consideration of their physical characteristics and potential psychological effects.",

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note = "Funding Information: This research was supported by Research Program To Solve Social Issues of the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (NRF-2017M3C8A8091770). This research was supported by the MSIT(Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the “ICT Consilience Creative Program” (IITP-2019-2017-0-01015) supervised by the IITP(Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation). Funding Information: This research was supported by Research Program To Solve Social Issues of the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (NRF-2017M3C8A8091770). This research was supported by the MSIT(Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ?ICT Consilience Creative Program? (IITP-2019-2017-0-01015) supervised by the IITP(Institute for Information & communications Technology Planning & Evaluation). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} John Benjamins Publishing Company",

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N2 - Researchers have reported that companion robots have had positive effects on older adults with depression. However, there has been little quantitative analysis on the relationship between robot design and depression. To address this, we surveyed 191 older adults and investigated the impact of age, gender and depression level on design preferences for companion robots. We focused on toy-sized companion robots and evaluated three design elements: type, weight and material. The findings show that baby-type robots were the most preferred by older adults. They favoured the lightest weights and microfibre materials, regardless of the independent variables. Moreover, robot weight preferences varied significantly with the level of depression. Highly depressed older adults disliked heavy robots. These preliminary findings suggest that companion robots need to be designed with careful consideration of their physical characteristics and potential psychological effects.

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Investigating the preferences of older adults concerning the design elements of a companion robot: Analysis on type, weight and material of companion robot

Abstract

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