BACKGROUND
Elderly robots are used as an assistive tool to meet the needs of the elderly in their daily lives and provide care and other services while reducing the burden of healthcare. Robots with children's characteristics are able to generate more intimate interactions that affect users' emotional and psychological well-being, and users' perceptions and preferences for emotional expression of robots become key to enhancing the experience of using them.
OBJECTIVE
Under the smart elderly care service model oriented to the combination of medical and nursing care, we study the users' perceptual results and morphological preferences of the emotional expression of elderly companion robots in order to reduce the users' barriers to use and mistrust of the robots.
METHODS
Using literature analysis, we propose six design principles for the emotional expression of the child-like characteristics for the elderly companion robot CareBot, conducted statistical analysis of questionnaires through an experimental study of interaction with robots, and explored in depth the results of user evaluation of the robot through visualized data reports.
RESULTS
Participants were most able to identify three of these emotional expressions (enthusiastic, indifferent, and surprised), and participants' age and familiarity with children or smart products could have a significant effect on the assessment results. At the same time, the robot has a child-like feature form with big-eyed expressions, cute movements, and children's voices, which is more affinity to the elderly. The applicability and consistency of "expression" and "combination of expression and voice" in the principle of emotional expression is high.
CONCLUSIONS
Appropriate child-like characteristics can enhance the emotional expression ability of companion robots, and designs that increase positive and decrease negative emotional expression of robots can help improve the acceptance of elderly companion robots.