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Would Granny Let an Assistive Robot into Her Home?

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Book cover Social Robotics (ICSR 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7621))

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Abstract

Assistive robots have received considerable research attention due to the increase of the senior population around the world and the shortage of caregivers. However, limited attention has been paid to involving seniors in the design process in order to elicit their attitudes and perception of having their own robot. This study addresses this issue. We conducted a workshop with 14 Swedish seniors age 65 to 86. The findings indicate that: (1) the functionality of the robot is far more important than the appearance; (2) the usefulness will determine the acceptance of a robot; (3) seniors feel it is important to keep up to date with new technological developments; (4) assistive robots were not perceived as intrusive and having a robotic presence in the seniors’ bathrooms and bedrooms was considered acceptable. These findings suggest that seniors are prepared to give assistive robots a try if the robot is perceived as useful.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rehabilitation Engineering, Lund University, Sweden

    Susanne Frennert & Håkan Eftring

  2. Department of Design Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

    Susanne Frennert, Britt Östlund & Håkan Eftring

Authors
  1. Susanne Frennert
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  2. Britt Östlund
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  3. Håkan Eftring
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Interactive Digial Media Institute, Social Robotics Laboratory, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 3, 117576, Singapore, Singapore

    Shuzhi Sam Ge  & John-John Cabibihan  & 

  2. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Gates Building, 94305-9010, Stanford, CA, USA

    Oussama Khatib

  3. Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, 15213, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Reid Simmons

  4. Faculty of Information Technology, University of Technology, Human-robot Collaboration Studio, 2007, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Mary-Anne Williams

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Frennert, S., Östlund, B., Eftring, H. (2012). Would Granny Let an Assistive Robot into Her Home?. In: Ge, S.S., Khatib, O., Cabibihan, JJ., Simmons, R., Williams, MA. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7621. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34103-8_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34102-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-34103-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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