Towards Considerate Human-Robot Coexistence: A Dual-Space Framework of Robot Design and Human Perception in Healthcare

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dual-space framework for human-robot coexistence in healthcare, emphasizing the dynamic interplay between robot design and human perception over time.

Contribution

It conceptualizes a co-evolving loop between human perceptions and robot design, highlighting humans as active mediators in the coexistence process.

Findings

Identified four interpretive dimensions of human perception.

Proposed a co-evolving loop model of perception and design.

Highlighted humans as active interpreters and mediators.

Abstract

The rapid advancement of robotics, spanning expanded capabilities, more intuitive interaction, and more integration into real-world workflows, is reshaping what it means for humans and robots to coexist. Beyond sharing physical space, this coexistence is increasingly characterized by organizational embeddedness, temporal evolution, social situatedness, and open-ended uncertainty. However, prior work has largely focused on static snapshots of attitudes and acceptance, offering limited insight into how perceptions form and evolve, and what active role humans play in shaping coexistence as a dynamic process. We address these gaps through in-depth follow-up interviews with nine participants from a 14-week co-design study on healthcare robots. We identify the human perception space, including four interpretive dimensions (i.e., degree of decomposition, temporal orientation, scope of reasoning, and source of evidence). We enrich the conceptual framework of human-robot coexistence by conceptualizing the mutual relationship between the human perception space and the robot design space as a co-evolving loop, in which human needs, design decisions, situated interpretations, and social mediation continuously reshape one another over time. Building on this, we propose considerate human-robot coexistence, arguing that humans act not only as design contributors but also as interpreters and mediators who actively shape how robots are understood and integrated across deployment stages.