A User Study for an Attention-Directed Robot for Telepresence.

The motivation of this paper is to study the potential use of an attention-directed robot, embodied as a pan-tilt tablet display, for telepresence applications with the elderly. With an audio-visual attention control system, the robot automatically directs attention to a speaker by fusion of visual and auditory features. We conducted a user study involving experiential interaction with the robot, which oriented its display in the direction of the user’s voice, and also tracked the user’s face once it is in view of the robot’s camera. A questionnaire was given to gather the opinions of the participants regarding the usability of the robot for the elderly, and their responses indicate a positive attitude, acceptance, and trust towards the attention-directed robot. By comparing the responses of subjects with different levels of video-conferencing experience, we found that subjects who video-conference more frequently tend to be more accepting of the robot. Furthermore, they indicated an acceptable price of the robot as less than the price of a tablet, and most of them expressed the desire to buy the robot in the near future.