Distance Does Not Matter: The Role of Physical Robot Presence in Social HRI with Older Adults

As the global older population increases, more older adults need assistance in their daily lives. There is an increasing interest in using social robots to assist with everyday activities to promote overall wellbeing and health. However, whether and how social robot physical presence can influence human-robot interactions (HRI) with older adults has not yet been explored. In this paper, we present the first long-term HRI study conducted in a long-term care home that investigates the interaction behaviors of older adults during dance sessions facilitated by physically present and remotely present social human-like robots. Our results show that the older adults had similarly high levels of engagement and enjoyment during the interactions regardless of if the social robot was physically or remotely present. Although higher participation rates were observed in the in-person HRI, participation rates in the remote HRI were consistent to those in other non-robot facilitated physical activity interventions for older adults. Overall, this paper explores the role of robot presence and its impact on HRI, while providing insight into the potential use of remote HRI for providing social assistance to older adults.