Age-Related Differences in the Perception of Eye-Gaze from a Social Robot

TL;DR

This study investigates how age-related differences affect the perception of eye-gaze in social robots, aiming to improve adaptive non-verbal cues for older adults in human-robot interactions.

Contribution

It explores the impact of age on perceiving robot gaze cues and suggests design considerations for age-adaptive non-verbal communication in social robots.

Findings

Older adults show reduced sensitivity to robot gaze cues.

Age influences social perception of robot gaze behavior.

Design recommendations for age-adaptive gaze cues.

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in social robots assisting older adults during daily life tasks. In this context, non-verbal cues such as deictic gaze are important in natural communication in human-robot interaction. However, the sensibility to deictic-gaze declines naturally with age and results in a reduction in social perception. Therefore, this work explores the benefits of deictic gaze from social robots assisting older adults during daily life tasks, and how age-related differences may influence their social perception in contrast to younger populations. This may help on the design of adaptive age-related non-verbal cues in the Human-Robot Interaction context.