TY - GEN
T1 - Rethinking the design of robotic pets for older adults
AU - Lazar, Amanda
AU - Thompson, Hilaire J.
AU - Piper, Anne Marie
AU - Demiris, George
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship grant (DGE-1256082). We thank the individuals who participated in this study and the following undergraduate researchers for their contributions: Maureen Fallen, Josephine Le, Jinjing Liu, and Olga Vitruk.
PY - 2016/6/4
Y1 - 2016/6/4
N2 - Robots are seen as a potential solution to the perceived needs of the aging population. Thus far, research has primarily focused on robotics for the functional and emotional support of older adults. Robotic pets have been developed primarily for the older adult who is perceived as lonely and isolated, and fears have consequently arisen that robots will replace human caregivers and deceive older adults into developing relationships with them. Missing is the perspective of older adults on the ethics of and potential uses for robotic companion pets. In this study, we conducted focus groups with 41 older adults. We discuss concepts raised by focus group participants such as giving into the fiction of the robotic pet, the social role of the robot, and the role of reciprocity in building a relationship with a robotic pet. We present resulting considerations for new directions for robotic pet design for older adults.
AB - Robots are seen as a potential solution to the perceived needs of the aging population. Thus far, research has primarily focused on robotics for the functional and emotional support of older adults. Robotic pets have been developed primarily for the older adult who is perceived as lonely and isolated, and fears have consequently arisen that robots will replace human caregivers and deceive older adults into developing relationships with them. Missing is the perspective of older adults on the ethics of and potential uses for robotic companion pets. In this study, we conducted focus groups with 41 older adults. We discuss concepts raised by focus group participants such as giving into the fiction of the robotic pet, the social role of the robot, and the role of reciprocity in building a relationship with a robotic pet. We present resulting considerations for new directions for robotic pet design for older adults.
KW - Aging
KW - Older adults
KW - Robots
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84978722192&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84978722192&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2901790.2901811
DO - 10.1145/2901790.2901811
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84978722192
T3 - DIS 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Fuse
SP - 1034
EP - 1046
BT - DIS 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
T2 - 11th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, DIS 2016
Y2 - 4 June 2016 through 8 June 2016
ER -