A social robot disguised as a sheep to activate people with dementia
To enable a richer experience than the Closer to Nature-installation, Feng integrated a social robot into the new follow-up design called LiveNature. Of LiveNature handles a new approach that combines social robot interaction with an augmented reality display to elicit positive emotional responses and enable multimodal interactions. Contact with animals can be expected to have therapeutic effects, such as uplifting people and stimulating relaxation, pleasure and satisfaction in people with dementia. In this design, the interaction between humans and robots was enhanced with visual and auditory feedback from the display. Based on LiveNature Feng further investigated how such a combination as ‘enriched’ interaction could influence the subjective user experience – engagement – of people with dementia.
A new way to quantify the subjective experience of people with dementia
Feng’s research rose to the challenge of making a robust assessment of the involvement of people with dementia. She used a method with both qualitative studies and quantitative observations. Self-reporting of subjective experiences is often impossible in people with dementia because of the associated language and cognitive impairments. That is why Feng, in collaboration with her colleague Giulia Perugia, applied an innovative method: the Ethnographic and Laban-Inspired Coding System of Engagement (ELICSE)† In doing so, they quantified the subjective experience of involvement through observations of physical behavior. The results of the experimental study based on LiveNature suggest that the provision of rich experiences at the sensory level can contribute to positive emotional experiences of people with dementia.
The design knowledge from this PhD research can be used for follow-up research. This research will lead to more innovative technological solutions that promote the psychosocial well-being of people with dementia and contribute to a good quality of life with this condition after a formal diagnosis.
Yuan Feng defended her dissertation with honors on July 7, 2022, entitled Context-Enhanced Human-Robot Interaction: Exploring the Role of System Interactivity and Multimodal Stimuli on the Engagement of People with Dementia. She was mentored by Matthias Rauterberg, Jun Hu, and Emilia Barakova. Other key stakeholders: Vital Berckelhof , China Scholarship Council