Japan faces many challenges related to its aging society, including increasing rates of cognitive decline in the population and a shortage of caregivers. Efforts have begun to explore solutions using artificial intelligence (AI), especially socially embodied intelligent agents and robots that can communicate with people. Yet, there has been little research on the compatibility of these agents with older adults in various everyday situations. To this end, we conducted a user study to evaluate a robot that functions as a facilitator for a group conversation protocol designed to prevent cognitive decline. We modified the robot to use backchannelling, a natural human way of speaking, to increase receptiveness of the robot and enjoyment of the group conversation experience. We conducted a cross-generational study with young adults and older adults. Qualitative analyses indicated that younger adults perceived the backchannelling version of the robot as kinder, more trustworthy, and more acceptable than the non-backchannelling robot. Finally, we found that the robot's backchannelling elicited nonverbal backchanneling in older participants.
@article{arxiv.2409.16899,
title = {Robotic Backchanneling in Online Conversation Facilitation: A Cross-Generational Study},
author = {Sota Kobuki and Katie Seaborn and Seiki Tokunaga and Kosuke Fukumori and Shun Hidaka and Kazuhiro Tamura and Koji Inoue and Tatsuya Kawahara and Mihoko Otake-Mastuura},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.16899},
year = {2024}
}
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Published at Proceedings of the 2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2023)