Improving the interaction of Older Adults with Socially Assistive Robots for Table setting

TL;DR

This study investigates how different levels of automation and transparency affect older adults' interactions with a robotic table setting assistant, revealing that lower automation fosters more collaborative engagement.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into how shared control and transparency influence older adults' interaction quality with assistive robots.

Findings

Lower automation increases user participation.

Less transparency encourages collaborative interaction.

Higher automation improves interaction fluency.

Abstract

This study provides user-studies aimed at exploring factors influencing the interaction between older adults and a robotic table setting assistant. The in-fluence of the level of automation (LOA) and level of transparency (LOT) on the quality of the interaction was considered. Results revealed that the interaction effect of LOA and LOT significantly influenced the interaction. A lower LOA which required the user to control some of the actions of the robot influenced the older adults to participate more in the interaction when the LOT was low com-pared to situations with higher LOT (more information) and higher LOA (more robot autonomy). Even though the higher LOA influenced more fluency in the interaction, the lower LOA encouraged a more collaborative form of interaction which is a priority in the design of robotic aids for older adult users. The results provide some insights into shared control designs which accommodates the preferences of the older adult users as they interact with robotic aids such as the table setting robot used in this study.