Abstract
Socially assistive robots are a promising technology for supporting residential care facilities to provide stimulating recreational activities to residents in group settings. In order for caregivers to teach robots customized recreational activities for residents in their facilities, these robots need to be able to learn such activities from non-experts. In this work, we present a novel learning from demonstration system that allows socially assistive robots to learn customized group recreational activities from caregivers and facilitate these activities with users. We validate the usability and effectiveness of the proposed system by conducting a robot teaching study with caregivers and the Tangy robot at a local residential care facility. The caregivers found the learning system easy to use, experienced moderately low perceived workload, and were able to successfully teach Tangy the game of Bingo. Once Tangy learned the game, it autonomously facilitated Bingo games with elderly residents. The residents found the robot behaviors, personalized by the caregivers, both helpful and entertaining. Furthermore, they enjoyed playing Bingo with Tangy and would participate in future games.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the staff and residents of our partner care facility for their support, assistance, and participation in these user studies. The authors also thank Sharaf Mohamed, Francis Despond, Christina Moro, and Tan Zhang for their assistance with the robot and teaching study.
Funding
This study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC), Dr. Robot Inc. and the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program.
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Appendix
Appendix
1.1 Post-Interaction Questionnaire
1.1.1 Part A: Open-Ended Questions
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1.
Did you find it easy to customize a new gesture for the robot?
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2.
Would you prefer another method for teaching the robot a new gesture (e.g. keyboard and mouse, physically moving the robot’s arms)?
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3.
Did you find it easy to customize new speech for an action?
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4.
Would you prefer another method for inputting new speech (e.g. such as speaking into a microphone)?
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5.
Was it useful to see what the robot saw in the Graphical User Interface?
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6.
Was it useful to present information about the current activity that the robot is observing (e.g. if someone has requested for assistance, how a Bingo card has been marked by a player, the called out Bingo numbers).
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7.
Was it useful to know what the robot has learned during the robot teaching session in the Graphical User Interface?
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8.
Do you think you could develop new recreational activities for the robot to do with the residents using this system?
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9.
Did you enjoy teaching the robot a new activity?
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10.
Do you have any additional comments or suggestions?
1.1.2 Part B: NASA-TLX Task Load Index
Please place an “X” along each scale at the point that best indicates your experience during the robot teaching session, ranging from low to high for statements 1-5 and good to bad for statement 6.
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1.
Mental Demand: How much mental and perceptual activity was required during the Bingo teaching task (e.g. moving arms, clicking the mouse, pressing buttons)? For example, was the Bingo teaching task easy or demanding, simple or complex, exacting or forgiving.
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2.
Physical Demand: How much physical activity was required during the Bingo teaching task (e.g. pushing, pulling, turning, controlling, activating, etc.)? Was the Bingo teaching task easy or demanding, slow or brisk, slack or strenuous, restful or laborious?
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3.
Temporal Demand: How much time pressure did you feel due to the rate or pace at which the Bingo teaching task occurred? Was the pace slow and leisurely or rapid and frantic?
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4.
Effort: How hard mentally or physically did you have to work to teach the robot Bingo?
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5.
Frustration: How discouraged, stressed, irritated, and annoyed versus gratified, relaxed, content, and complacent did you feel while teaching the robot.
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6.
Performance: How successful do you think you were in accomplishing the goals of the Bingo teaching task? How satisfied were you with your performance in accomplishing these goals?
1.1.3 Part C: System Usability Scale
Please place an “X” to indicate your level of agreement to the following statements.
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1.
I think that I would like to use the robot teaching system frequently to teach the robot to facilitate new leisure activities with residents.
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2.
I found using the robot teaching system too complex.
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3.
I thought the robot teaching system was easy to use.
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4.
I think that I would need the support of a technical person who is always nearby to be able to use this robot teaching system.
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5.
I found the various functions of the robot teaching system were well integrated.
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6.
I thought there was too much inconsistency in the robot teaching system.
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7.
I would imagine that most recreational activity program staff would very quickly learn to use the robot teaching system.
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8.
I found the robot teaching system very cumbersome to use.
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9.
I felt very confident using the robot teaching system.
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10.
I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with the robot teaching system.
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Louie, WY.G., Nejat, G. A Social Robot Learning to Facilitate an Assistive Group-Based Activity from Non-expert Caregivers. Int J of Soc Robotics 12, 1159–1176 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00621-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00621-4