Abstract
Interactions with animals can enhance emotions and improve mood by engendering feelings of healing, relaxation, comfort, and reduced stress. Un-fortunately, many people cannot live with animals because of allergies, infection risk, or risk of damage to rental housing. To address these problems, some research groups have investigated robot-based psychotherapy. However, the important healing elements for therapy robots were not identified. Therefore, we conducted an Internet survey to determine the design elements of such a robot that might engender a healing mood and the functions that should be implemented. We assumed that a healing mood could be induced based on the interactive functions and appearance. To verify this hypothesis, we developed and evaluated a new interactive therapy robot. Next, we conducted interviews with individuals who interacted with a prototype therapy robot. The interviews revealed that the appearance of the robot was critical to engendering feelings of healing, comfort, and empathy. In addition, the size, softness, and comfort of the interactive therapy robot contributed to people feeling affection towards it. We also confirmed the importance of the robot appearing to listen to those who interacted with it. Our results should be useful for designing companion robots for therapy purposes.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Japan national census (2015). http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/pdf/2016all.pdf#page=23. Accessed 30 June 2017
Baum, M.M., Bergstrom, N., Langston, N.F., Thoma, L.: Physiological effects of human/companion animal bonding. Nurs. Res. 33(3), 126–129 (1984)
Gammonley, J., Yates, J.: Pet projects animal assisted therapy in nursing homes. J. Gerontol. Nurs. 17(1), 12–15 (1991)
Cohen, S.P.: Can pets function as family members? West. J. Nurs. Res. 24, 621–638 (2002)
American Pet Products Association. http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp. Accessed 04 July 2017
Japan Pet Food Association homepage (in Japanese). http://www.petfood.or.jp/data/chart2016/10.pdf. Accessed 26 Sept 2017
Public Opinion Survey on Animal Protection - Cabinet Office homepage (in Japanese). https://www.env.go.jp/council/14animal/y143-06/ref01.pdf. Accessed 26 Sept 2017
Wada, K., Shibata, T., Saito, T., Tanie, K.: Effects of robot-assisted activity for elderly people and nurses at a day service center. Proc. IEEE 92(11), 1780–1788 (2004)
Unazuki-Kabochan homepage. http://www.kabo-chan.com/. Accessed 05 July 2017
Tanaka, M., Ishii, A., Yamano, E., Ogikubo, H., Okazaki, M., Kamimura, K., Konishi, Y., Emoto, S., Watanabe, Y.: Effect of a human-type communication robot on cognitive function in elderly women living alone. Med. Sci. Mon. 18(9), CR550–CR557 (2012)
Primopuel homepage. http://primopuel.net/index.html. Accessed 05 July 2017
AIBO homepage. http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/aibo/. Accessed 05 July 2017
Fujita, M.: On activating human communications with pet-type robot AIBO. Proc. IEEE 92(11), 1804–1813 (2004)
Bainbridge, W.S.: Leadership in Science and Technology: A Reference Handbook. Sage Publications, USA (2011)
Takahashi, T.: General ideas of robot design (in Japanese). J. Robot. Soc. Jpn. 22(8), 966–969 (2004)
Mori, Y., Saito, Y., Kamide, H.: Evaluation of impressions for hug dolls (in Japanese). Int. J. Affect. Eng. 11(1), 9–15 (2012)
Kawaguchi, M.: Megatrend 2014–2023 (in Japanese), pp. 122–126. Nikkei Business Publications, Japan (2003)
Tanno, H., Matsui, Y.: The functions of friendship in undergraduates (in Japanese). Tsukuba Psychol. Res. 31, 21–30 (2003)
Asakawa, K., Sano, T., Kogawa, M., Azuma, Y., Keiko, M.: The healing effects of pet animals on college students: A health psychological study (in Japanese). Bull. Hyogo Univ. Teach. Educ. Engl. 1(20), 115–119 (2000)
Harlow, H.F.: Nature of love. Am. Psychol. 13, 673–685 (1958)
Yano Research Institute Ltd.: Character Business’s 2014 Year-Book (in Japanese), p. 415. Yano Research Institute (2014)
Docomo developer support homepage (in Japnese). https://dev.smt.docomo.ne.jp/?p=index. Accessed 06 Mar 2016
Japan Pet Food Association homepage (in Japnese). http://www.petfood.or.jp/data/chart2014/02.html. Accessed 10 July 2017
Pepper homepage (in Japanese). https://www.softbank.jp/robot/. Accessed 19 June 2017
Derived character of VOCALOIDTM HATSUNE MIKU homepage (in Japanese). http://miku.sega.jp/. Accessed 10 July 2017
Steiff homepage (in Japanese). http://www.steiff.co.jp/. Accessed 12 July 2017
Bowlby, J.: Attachment and Loss. Attachment, vol. 1. Basic Books, New York (1969)
Hamada, T., Yokoyama, A., Shibata, T.: Development of robot therapy (in Japanese). J. Soc. Instrum. Control Eng. 42(9), 756–762 (2004)
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Ms. Masako Fukui, Ms. Yasuko Matsumura, Ms. Chie Sumitomo and Ms. Mika Kawamura who helped the Internet survey and interviews. We would also like to thank reviewers who provided constructive comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
1 Electronic supplementary material
Appendix
Appendix
We uploaded Appendices to the Google drive. Please refer to URL as below (last accessed 2017/10/23).
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B69_7k616WJNSVd4M05TQkZrYXM
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kohori, T. et al. (2018). Development and Evaluation of an Interactive Therapy Robot. In: Cheok, A., Inami, M., Romão, T. (eds) Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology. ACE 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10714. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76269-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76270-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)