System design of group communication activator: An entertainment task for elderly care

Yoichi Matsuyama*, Hikaru Taniyama, Shinya Fujie, Tetsunori Kobayashi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Our community is facing serious Aging Society especially in Japan. We have investigated in one of daycare centers which are facilities for elderly care. As the result, we realized that communication is needed for its own sake in these facilities and active communication can cure even depression and dementia. Therefore we propose to cope with these problems using a robot as a communication activator in order to improve group communication. We define group communication as one of types of communication which is formed by several persons. This time, we focus on a recreation game named "Nandoku. " Nandoku is a quiz which can be describedas group communication with a master of ceremony (MC). The system always selects its behavior and target (aparticipant in the game) to maximize "communication activeness. " Communication activeness is defined as amount of several panelists'(ordinary three: A, B, C) participation, which are calculated with panelists' face direction using camera information. For instance, if participant A is not fully participating by not making eye contact, the system is expected to select one of the behaviors such as "Can you answer, Mr.A?" to encourage A to participate in the game. We experimented with the system in a daycare center. As the result, obvious increase in participation was observed. That offers evidence that the robot can serve a practical role in improving the group communication as a communication activator especially for entertainment use.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, HRI'09
Pages243-244
Number of pages2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008
Event4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, HRI'09 - San Diego, CA, United States
Duration: 2009 Mar 112009 Mar 13

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, HRI'09

Conference

Conference4th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, HRI'09
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Diego, CA
Period09/3/1109/3/13

Keywords

  • Design
  • Human Factors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'System design of group communication activator: An entertainment task for elderly care'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this