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Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs

Studies of the impact of robotic companion pets are proliferating, authored by several disciplines, each with different concerns. Roboticists focus on technology design and artificial emotional intelligence as opposed to general preferences for soft, furry, interactive animals. Others worry that as...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Troutman-Jordan, Meredith, Davis, Boyd
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8682222/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3497
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author Troutman-Jordan, Meredith
Davis, Boyd
author_facet Troutman-Jordan, Meredith
Davis, Boyd
author_sort Troutman-Jordan, Meredith
collection PubMed
description Studies of the impact of robotic companion pets are proliferating, authored by several disciplines, each with different concerns. Roboticists focus on technology design and artificial emotional intelligence as opposed to general preferences for soft, furry, interactive animals. Others worry that as people interact with potentially deceptive technology, they may think the pet is alive. While aware of these serious concerns, gerontologists have focused on how lonely older persons without cognitive impairment respond to social ‘helper’ robots. More recent studies emphasize the possible impact of animatronic pets on persons with dementia (PWD). Therapeutic benefits of these pets are just being established. Our current pilot study is timely in that it now involves semi-structured interviews with formal/ informal caregivers of PWD who have been given a robot pet. We are eliciting perceptions, opinions, and observations of the PWD’s response to robotic pets. We recruited 8 gerontology students as much-needed assistants for a research-driven topics course to afford them field exposure to PWD, caregivers, and direct research experience. Because students seldom have experience either with robotic pets or PWD, they read selected articles and received training/practice in semi-structured interviewing techniques. Students next conducted interviews with caregivers of PWD who have interacted with the pets. All interviews are audio-recorded, transcribed and deposited in the Carolinas Conversations Collection. Content and thematic analysis of transcriptions, student activity logs and bi-weekly reflective discussions will inform next steps in intervention research, testing therapeutic outcomes such as agitation reduction by pet robots for PWD.
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spelling pubmed-86822222021-12-20 Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs Troutman-Jordan, Meredith Davis, Boyd Innov Aging Abstracts Studies of the impact of robotic companion pets are proliferating, authored by several disciplines, each with different concerns. Roboticists focus on technology design and artificial emotional intelligence as opposed to general preferences for soft, furry, interactive animals. Others worry that as people interact with potentially deceptive technology, they may think the pet is alive. While aware of these serious concerns, gerontologists have focused on how lonely older persons without cognitive impairment respond to social ‘helper’ robots. More recent studies emphasize the possible impact of animatronic pets on persons with dementia (PWD). Therapeutic benefits of these pets are just being established. Our current pilot study is timely in that it now involves semi-structured interviews with formal/ informal caregivers of PWD who have been given a robot pet. We are eliciting perceptions, opinions, and observations of the PWD’s response to robotic pets. We recruited 8 gerontology students as much-needed assistants for a research-driven topics course to afford them field exposure to PWD, caregivers, and direct research experience. Because students seldom have experience either with robotic pets or PWD, they read selected articles and received training/practice in semi-structured interviewing techniques. Students next conducted interviews with caregivers of PWD who have interacted with the pets. All interviews are audio-recorded, transcribed and deposited in the Carolinas Conversations Collection. Content and thematic analysis of transcriptions, student activity logs and bi-weekly reflective discussions will inform next steps in intervention research, testing therapeutic outcomes such as agitation reduction by pet robots for PWD. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8682222/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3497 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Troutman-Jordan, Meredith
Davis, Boyd
Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title_full Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title_fullStr Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title_full_unstemmed Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title_short Interdisciplinary Innovations Utilizing Pet Robots to Meet Research, Education, and Care Needs
title_sort interdisciplinary innovations utilizing pet robots to meet research, education, and care needs
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8682222/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3497
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