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| Elderly people like robots -- the more human the machines look, the more so. Photo: Anne Guenther/FSU Jena |
A world without robots is now almost inconceivable. Not only do they take on important tasks in production processes, they are also increasingly being used in the service sector. For example, machines created to resemble humans - known as androids - are helping to care for elderly people. However, this development conflicts with the preconception that senior citizens are rather hostile to technology and would be sceptical about a robot. A study by psychologists of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany suggests, however, that older people are far less anxious and hostile regarding such 'human robots' than previously thought.
Robots need to look human
During their series of experiments, the results of which have now been published in the specialist journal 'Computers in Human Behaviour', the Jena researchers showed videos of various robots to 30 participants aged around 70 and 30 others aged around 20. The participants were asked to evaluate whether they found the robot friendly or threatening and whether they could imagine it as a daily companion.
In the tests, the older participants made a clearly positive assessment of the machines - and were even more open-minded towards them than the younger comparison group," says Prof. Stefan Schweinberger of the University of Jena. "...
In their experiments, Schweinberger and his team also analysed to what extent the participants exhibited autistic personality traits. "Although none of the participants in the study had a diagnosis of autism, the autism spectrum is now seen as a continuum that includes all people, to a greater or lesser extent. More pronounced autistic personality traits on an appropriate scale may give us further clues as to how open people are to machines", explains Schweinberger.
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Source: EurekAlert
