A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots

Alhouli, Sarah

doi:10.23889/SUThesis.71083

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

E-Thesis under embargo until: 29th October 2030

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...

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Published:	Swansea 2025
Institution:	Swansea University
Degree level:	Doctoral
Degree name:	Ph.D
Supervisor:	Sahoo, D., and Ahmad, M.
URI:	https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71083

first_indexed	2025-12-04T14:11:07Z
last_indexed	2025-12-05T18:13:29Z
id	cronfa71083
recordtype	RisThesis
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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. 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spelling	2025-12-04T14:14:12.7238888 v2 71083 2025-12-04 A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots e1525e1e38ade4a94f7c0d2640efb1eb 0000-0002-2300-3031 Sarah Alhouli Sarah Alhouli true false 2025-12-04 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. E-Thesis Swansea 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 29 10 2025 2025-10-29 10.23889/SUThesis.71083 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Sahoo, D., and Ahmad, M. Doctoral Ph.D Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) 2025-12-04T14:14:12.7238888 2025-12-04T14:04:49.9785654 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Mathematics and Computer Science - Computer Science Sarah Alhouli 0000-0002-2300-3031 1 Under embargo Under embargo 2025-12-04T14:10:36.6735183 Output 80022796 application/pdf E-Thesis true 2030-10-29T00:00:00.0000000 Copyright: the author, Sarah Yousef M. Alhouli, 2025 true eng
title	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
spellingShingle	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots Sarah Alhouli
title_short	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
title_full	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
title_fullStr	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
title_full_unstemmed	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
title_sort	A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots
author_id_str_mv	e1525e1e38ade4a94f7c0d2640efb1eb
author_id_fullname_str_mv	e1525e1e38ade4a94f7c0d2640efb1eb_***_Sarah Alhouli
author	Sarah Alhouli
author2	Sarah Alhouli
format	E-Thesis
publishDate	2025
institution	Swansea University
doi_str_mv	10.23889/SUThesis.71083
college_str	Faculty of Science and Engineering
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department_str	School of Mathematics and Computer Science - Computer Science{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Mathematics and Computer Science - Computer Science
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description	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.
published_date	2025-10-29T05:34:23Z
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score	11.096068

A User-designed Multimodal Soft Robot Pet for Older Adults to Improve Acceptance of Social Robots / Sarah Alhouli

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