Designing robots for positive communication with senior citizens

Abstract

Robots for elderly care are meant to increase the quality of care services. We designed a teleoperated android called Telenoid to support communication with the elderly. At first sight, Telenoid’s odd appearance often provokes negative reactions from people of various ages. After they hug and interact with it, their impressions become more positive. However, experiments in Japan and Denmark suggest that the elderly easily accept Telenoid from their first interactions with it, but the reason remains unexplained. This paper hypothesizes and discusses possible reasons why Telenoid is accepted by the elderly. We think that Telenoid triggers and enhances the ability of the elderly to imagine and positively complete the information, thus making them feel attracted to it. Based on this hypothesis, we discuss the factors that trigger the imagination and lets the senior citizens form a positive impression of the robot.