The role of robots in socially assistive applications

Abstract

Socially assistive robots help people through social, rather than physical, interactions. While physically assistive robots act by physically manipulating a user’s body, socially assistive robots provide help through tutoring, therapy, home assistance and other tasks. For example, tutoring robots can offer struggling students additional one-on-one assistance outside of the classroom. For such robots, the prevailing interaction paradigm sets the robot as an authority figure—a teacher or instructor—who conveys information to students. While robot-as-teacher can be an effective formula, robots are uniquely suited to other roles in the teacher-student relationship as well. This article describes our lab’s work with socially assistive robots that embody alternative roles for teaching, including acting as peers and as students, as well as acting in multi-robot groups. We outline ongoing research with robots that help children and discuss some open questions in socially assistive robotics.