Standard pediatric cognitive and projective assessments can be monotonous and provoke anxiety. This reduces children's engagement and compliance and diminishes the quality of observable behavior. In this work, we present a workflow that transfers routine paper-and-pencil tasks to a tablet application and adds a NAO humanoid robot as a social partner. Our goal is to provide a robot-and-tablet system for standardized assessments. In this exploratory study, we focused on quantifying the added contribution of the robot to engagement compared to a tablet-only system. To this end, we evaluated the workflow in a pediatric clinic with 24 participants, each with a distinct neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosis, using a controlled, between-subjects design. The tablet-only condition delivered the same activities and pacing without robot cues. This served as a control to isolate the effect of social scaffolding. Licensed therapists rated engagement using the Pediatric Assessment of Rehabilitation Engagement (PARE) scale. Our preliminary findings suggest that the robot's presence supported higher observable engagement and sustained participation without altering the rapport within the child–therapist–robot triad. Moreover, results in the PARE scale were significantly different between the two conditions when considering the age of the little patients (with mean age 10 vs. 8, respectively). While the small sample size and age distribution warrant cautious interpretation, this work highlights a robot's potential contribution to children's engagement during standardized assessment.
Effective theatrical rehearsal is essential for actors’ character development, involving intricate cognitive, emotional, and physical processes. Despite well-established traditional techniques that combine individual practice and partner interactions, rehearsal often requires significant time and resources. Emerging digital and robotic technologies present novel opportunities to enhance rehearsal methods; however, their potential as interactive rehearsal aids remains largely unexplored. This research examines the role of a social robot in supporting actors during pre-rehearsal or solo preparation of two scenes from Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1944). Thirty actors with different levels of experience participated in three rehearsal settings: solo practice, rehearsal with a robot playing one character, and rehearsal with the robot alternating between two roles. We evaluated the robot's impact via qualitative responses and self-reports. Thematic analysis indicated that robot-assisted rehearsal improved participants’ experience compared to solo rehearsal, especially among less experienced actors. The robot's role-switching capability offered additional depth appreciated mainly by seasoned performers. These outcomes highlight the promise of social robots as rehearsal tools adapted to the experience of actors.
We investigate the effects of three different methods for robot compliments: simple compliments, discerning to use simple compliments or not, and discerning compliments with grounded explanations. Robots in customer service positions will need to not only complete functional tasks but also be able to give subjective opinions, such as compliments. There are many factors that contribute to a compliment being effective, and the perception of the compliment is important for building positive rapport. We compare three strategies for robot compliments by building a system that evaluates the suitability of a person and their hat based on expert knowledge, can discern if it should compliment or not, and can ground and explain its opinions. In a 22-person within-participants study, we compare just simply complimenting, discerning whether to compliment or not, and whether to ground those decisions or not. We find that people trust a robot more if it uses discerning and grounded compliments. Further, customers experience higher satisfaction and intention to use the robot, and qualitatively prefer it to their experiences with human shopkeepers. Our findings highlight that more complex and nuanced abilities to provide critical feedback to a person, specifically choosing when and how to compliment someone, is important for successful HRI.
This is a corrigendum for the article “Coordinating Human-Robot Teams with Dynamic and Stochastic Task Proficiencies” published in ACM Trans. Hum.-Robot Interact. 11, 1, Article 5 (October 2021), 42 pages.
Self-monitoring, a commonly used technique in cognitive-behavioral interventions, involves the objective observation and organization of one’s internal states. However, providing continuous, individualized support for this process is challenging in resource-limited psychiatric daycare settings. While social robots show promise in facilitating self-disclosure, evidence regarding their long-term practical utility and clinical relevance in real-world clinical environments remains insufficient. To address this gap, we conducted a two-phase field study comprising periodic sessions held over a 24-month period to develop and evaluate a social robot-assisted self-monitoring support system. In the 14-month Development Phase (N = 39), we employed a practice-informed design process to establish robot-specific design principles, prioritizing a non-judgmental listener role over advice-giving and offering user-selected positive and negative topics to accommodate diverse psychosocial needs. This was followed by a 10-month Evaluation Phase (N = 20), consisting of 10 experimental days, to assess the finalized system’s impact. Key findings indicated that: (1) single dialogue sessions were followed by significant improvements in participants’ subjective overall health and alertness; (2) participants demonstrated a strong preference for positive-oriented topics; and (3) qualitative analysis revealed emergent reflective insights and perceived positive changes. These results provide empirical evidence suggesting the system’s practical utility and clinical relevance, highlighting the value of a user-centered approach that empowers patients to choose topics aligned with their recovery goals.
