E-Thesis 123 views
A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots / Sarah Alhouli
Swansea University Author: Sarah Alhouli
DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUThesis.71083
Abstract
Social robots that provide emotional support through companionship have emerged as a promising technological intervention to effectively improve older adults’ mental well-being. However, many older adults exhibit limited acceptance of or willingness to adopt robots due to several factors, including u...
| Published: |
Swansea
2025
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Sahoo, D., and Ahmad, M. |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71083 |
| Abstract: |
Social robots that provide emotional support through companionship have emerged as a promising technological intervention to effectively improve older adults’ mental well-being. However, many older adults exhibit limited acceptance of or willingness to adopt robots due to several factors, including unfamiliarity with technology, a lack of emotional connection, privacy concerns, and negative attitudes developed during their initial experience with the robot. Due to an expert-led approach in the design of commercial robots, there is a lack of interaction design to improve users’ initial experience through a positive first impression and users’ social and emotional considerations. The initial experience varies across cultures due to users’ different expectations, which play a critical role in designing robot interaction to reduce negative attitudes. This thesis aims to identify requirements, co-design, prototype, and evaluate a social robot for supporting older adults’ mental well-being, focusing on improving its acceptance by implementing the gift-giving scenario and designing its first impression through co-designing with younger relatives and users from two different cultures. The thesis follows a series of co-design sessions with older adults in the UK and Kuwait to design the robot for mental well-being support, with younger relatives to design the robot’s initial interactions and scenarios for a positive initial impression for their older family members, a prototype development using off-the-shelf components, and user evaluation sessions with older adults in the UK and Kuwait. This thesis presents the persisting emotional challenges faced by older adults, user-defined robot design for a multimodal soft robot pet, an agreed-upon set of sound and voice responses for touch, gesture, facial expression, and speech-based multimodal interactions, an agreed-upon scenario for positive initial experiences with the robot, and a comparison of older adults’ negative attitudes and technology acceptance in the UK and Kuwait. The thesis demonstrates a non-threatening, easy-to-use, and visually appealing robot that fosters a positive initial experience for older adults. The key findings and contributions of this thesis would inform human-robot interaction researchers in the design of multimodal social robots for older adults, a methodological approach in cross-cultural design for intergenerational connectedness, and technological interventions for healthy ageing. This work holds great potential to improve older adults’ acceptance of robots through positive initial experiences and multimodal interactions. |
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| Keywords: |
Human-Robot Interaction, Social robots, Companionship, Older Adults, Mental Wellbeing, Robot Acceptance, First Impression, Cross-Cultural Design, Co-design, Gift Giving, Relative-led Design, Soft Robot Pet |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) |