Relational Appliances: A Robot in the Refrigerator for Home-Based Health Promotion
Timothy Bickmore, Mehdi Arjmand, Yunus Terzioglu

TL;DR
This study introduces the concept of relational appliances, exemplified by a robotic head inside a refrigerator, to promote healthy eating through personalized, engaging interactions that influence snack choices at home.
Contribution
It presents a novel approach to health promotion by integrating anthropomorphic robots into household appliances for ongoing, personalized engagement.
Findings
Participants found the robot persuasive and engaging.
The robot increased awareness of snack choices.
Participants showed interest in having such robots at home.
Abstract
Kitchen appliances are frequently used domestic artifacts situated at the point of everyday dietary decision making, making them a promising but underexplored site for health promotion. We explore the concept of relational appliances: everyday household devices designed as embodied social actors that engage users through ongoing, personalized interaction. We focus on the refrigerator, whose unique affordances, including a fixed, sensor-rich environment, private interaction space, and close coupling to food items, support contextualized, conversational engagement during snack choices. We present an initial exploration of this concept through a pilot study deploying an anthropomorphic robotic head inside a household refrigerator. In a home-lab apartment, participants repeatedly retrieved snacks during simulated TV "commercial breaks" while interacting with a human-sized robotic head.…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSocial Robot Interaction and HRI · AI in Service Interactions · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
