̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Hatice Gunes

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2023 for Research Impact and Engagement

zs332 — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 09:20:46 +0000

Meet the winner of the Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2023 for Research Impact and Engagement and learn more about their projects.

̽��ֱ��life robotic: Meet the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers fostering human wellbeing using robots

sb726 — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 10:10:48 +0000

̽��ֱ��team is exploring the capacity robots have to inspire self-reflection, and support the work of psychologists and clinicians.

Robots can help improve mental wellbeing at work – as long as they look right

sc604 — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:50:57 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge conducted a study in a tech consultancy firm using two robot wellbeing coaches, where 26 employees participated in weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks. Although the robots had identical voices, facial expressions, and scripts for the sessions, the physical appearance of the robot affected how participants interacted with it.

Participants who did their wellbeing exercises with a toy-like robot said that they felt more of a connection with their ‘coach’ than participants who worked with a humanoid-like robot. ̽��ֱ��researchers say that perception of robots is affected by popular culture, where the only limit on what robots can do is the imagination. When faced with a robot in the real world however, it often does not live up to expectations.

Since the toy-like robot looks simpler, participants may have had lower expectations and ended up finding the robot easier to talk and connect with. Participants who worked with the humanoid robot found that their expectations didn’t match reality, since the robot was not capable of having interactive conversations.

Despite the differences between expectations and reality, the researchers say that their study shows that robots can be a useful tool to promote mental wellbeing in the workplace. ̽��ֱ��results will be reported today (15 March) at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Stockholm.

̽��ֱ��World Health Organization recommends that employers take action to promote and protect mental wellbeing at work, but the implementation of wellbeing practices is often limited by a lack of resources and personnel. Robots have shown some early promise for helping address this gap, but most studies on robots and wellbeing have been conducted in a laboratory setting.

“We wanted to take the robots out of the lab and study how they might be useful in the real world,” said first author Dr Micol Spitale, from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.

̽��ֱ��researchers collaborated with local technology company Cambridge Consultants to design and implement a workplace wellbeing programme using robots. Over the course of four weeks, employees were guided through four different wellbeing exercises by one of two robots: either the QTRobot (QT) or the Misty II robot (Misty).

̽��ֱ��QT is a childlike humanoid robot and roughly 90cm tall, while Misty is a 36cm tall toy-like robot. Both robots have screen faces that can be programmed with different facial expressions.

“We interviewed different wellbeing coaches and then we programmed our robots to have a coach-like personality, with high openness and conscientiousness,” said co-author Minja Axelsson. “ ̽��ֱ��robots were programmed to have the same personality, the same facial expressions and the same voice, so the only difference between them was the physical robot form.”

Participants in the experiment were guided through different positive psychology exercises by a robot in an office meeting room. Each session started with the robot asking participants to recall a positive experience or describe something in their lives they were grateful for, and the robot would ask follow-up questions. After the sessions, participants were asked to assess the robot with a questionnaire and an interview. Participants did one session per week for four weeks, and worked with the same robot for each session.

Participants who worked with the toy-like Misty robot reported that they had a better working connection with the robot than participants who worked with the child-like QT robot. Participants also had a more positive perception of Misty overall.

“It could be that since the Misty robot is more toy-like, it matched their expectations,” said Spitale. “But since QT is more humanoid, they expected it to behave like a human, which may be why participants who worked with QT were slightly underwhelmed.”

“ ̽��ֱ��most common response we had from participants was that their expectations of the robot didn’t match with reality,” said Professor Hatice Gunes, who led the research. “We programmed the robots with a script, but participants were hoping there would be more interactivity. It’s incredibly difficult to create a robot that’s capable of natural conversation. New developments in large language models could really be beneficial in this respect.”

“Our perceptions of how robots should look or behave might be holding back the uptake of robotics in areas where they can be useful,” said Axelsson.

Although the robots used in the experiment are not as advanced as C-3PO or other fictional robots, participants still said they found the wellbeing exercises helpful, and that they were open to the idea of talking to a robot in future.

“ ̽��ֱ��robot can serve as a physical reminder to commit to the practice of wellbeing exercises,” said Gunes. “And just saying things out loud, even to a robot, can be helpful when you’re trying to improve mental wellbeing.”

̽��ֱ��team is now working to enhance the robot coaches’ responsiveness during coaching practices and interactions.

̽��ֱ��research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Hatice Gunes is a Staff Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Reference:
Micol Spitale, Minja Axelsson, and Hatice Gunes. ‘Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches for the Workplace: An In-the-Wild Study on Form.’ Paper presented to the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Stockholm, Sweden, 13-16 March 2023.

Try a positive psychology session with the robots used in this research as part of the Cambridge Festival on Saturday, 18 March.

Robots can be useful as mental wellbeing coaches in the workplace – but perception of their effectiveness depends in large part on what the robot looks like.

Our perceptions of how robots should look or behave might be holding back the uptake of robotics in areas where they can be useful

Minja Axelsson

Hatice Gunes

QT robot (left) and Misty robot (right)

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Robots can be used to assess children’s mental wellbeing, study suggests

sc604 — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 23:53:05 +0000

A team of roboticists, computer scientists and psychiatrists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge carried out a study with 28 children between the ages of eight and 13, and had a child-sized humanoid robot administer a series of standard psychological questionnaires to assess the mental wellbeing of each participant.

̽��ֱ��children were willing to confide in the robot, in some cases sharing information with the robot that they had not yet shared via the standard assessment method of online or in-person questionnaires. This is the first time that robots have been used to assess mental wellbeing in children.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that robots could be a useful addition to traditional methods of mental health assessment, although they are not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health support. ̽��ֱ��results will be presented today at the 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) in Naples, Italy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, home schooling, financial pressures, and isolation from peers and friends impacted the mental health of many children. Even before the pandemic however, anxiety and depression among children in the UK has been on the rise, but the resources and support to address mental wellbeing are severely limited.

Professor Hatice Gunes, who leads the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory in Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology, has been studying how socially-assistive robots (SARs) can be used as mental wellbeing ‘coaches’ for adults, but in recent years has also been studying how they may be beneficial to children.

“After I became a mother, I was much more interested in how children express themselves as they grow, and how that might overlap with my work in robotics,” said Gunes. “Children are quite tactile, and they’re drawn to technology. If they’re using a screen-based tool, they’re withdrawn from the physical world. But robots are perfect because they’re in the physical world – they’re more interactive, so the children are more engaged.”

With colleagues in Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry, Gunes and her team designed an experiment to see if robots could be a useful tool to assess mental wellbeing in children.

“There are times when traditional methods aren’t able to catch mental wellbeing lapses in children, as sometimes the changes are incredibly subtle,” said Nida Itrat Abbasi, the study’s first author. “We wanted to see whether robots might be able to help with this process.”

For the study, 28 participants between ages eight and 13 each took part in a one-to-one 45-minute session with a Nao robot – a humanoid robot about 60 centimetres tall. A parent or guardian, along with members of the research team, observed from an adjacent room. Prior to each session, children and their parent or guardian completed standard online questionnaire to assess each child’s mental wellbeing.

During each session, the robot performed four different tasks: 1) asked open-ended questions about happy and sad memories over the last week; 2) administered the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (SMFQ); 3) administered a picture task inspired by the Children’s Apperception Test (CAT), where children are asked to answer questions related to pictures shown; and 4) administered the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) for generalised anxiety, panic disorder and low mood.

Children were divided into three different groups following the SMFQ, according to how likely they were to be struggling with their mental wellbeing. Participants interacted with the robot throughout the session by speaking with it, or by touching sensors on the robot’s hands and feet. Additional sensors tracked participants’ heartbeat, head and eye movements during the session.

Study participants all said they enjoyed talking with the robot: some shared information with the robot that they hadn’t shared either in person or on the online questionnaire.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that children with varying levels of wellbeing concerns interacted differently with the robot. For children that might not be experiencing mental wellbeing-related problems, the researchers found that interacting with the robot led to more positive response ratings to the questionnaires. However, for children that might be experiencing wellbeing related concerns, the robot may have enabled them to divulge their true feelings and experiences, leading to more negative response ratings to the questionnaire.

“Since the robot we use is child-sized, and completely non-threatening, children might see the robot as a confidante – they feel like they won’t get into trouble if they share secrets with it,” said Abbasi. “Other researchers have found that children are more likely to divulge private information – like that they’re being bullied, for example – to a robot than they would be to an adult.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that while their results show that robots could be a useful tool for psychological assessment of children, they are not a substitute for human interaction.

“We don’t have any intention of replacing psychologists or other mental health professionals with robots, since their expertise far surpasses anything a robot can do,” said co-author Dr Micol Spitale. “However, our work suggests that robots could be a useful tool in helping children to open up and share things they might not be comfortable sharing at first.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that they hope to expand their survey in future, by including more participants and following them over time. They are also investigating whether similar results could be achieved if children interact with the robot via video chat.

̽��ֱ��research was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. Hatice Gunes is a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Reference:
Nida Itrat Abbasi et al. ‘Can Robots Help in the Evaluation of Mental Wellbeing in Children? An Empirical Study.’ Paper presented to the 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Naples, Italy, 29 August – 2 September 2022.

Robots can be better at detecting mental wellbeing issues in children than parent-reported or self-reported testing, a new study suggests.

Children might see the robot as a confidante – they feel like they won’t get into trouble if they share secrets with it

Nida Itrat Abbasi

Rachel Gardner

Nao robot shaking hands with study co-author Dr Micol Spitale

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Wellbeing on demand

jg533 — Mon, 24 May 2021 07:51:26 +0000

Robotics researchers are creating an emotionally intelligent wellbeing coach, available 24/7 to help make us more resilient to life’s challenges.

Robots can go all the way to Mars, but they can’t pick up the groceries

sc604 — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 09:23:54 +0000

In the popular imagination, robots have been portrayed alternatively as friendly companions or existential threat. But while robots are becoming commonplace in many industries, they are neither C-3PO nor the Terminator. Cambridge researchers are studying the interaction between robots and humans – and teaching them how to do the very difficult things that we find easy. Click here to find out more.

Puppy, a running robot developed by Fumiya Iida’s team

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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