2019/09/14 by Francesca Dino, Dino, Francesca, Rohola Zandie +7 · 2 citations
Psychology · #Digital Mental Health Interventions #Mental Health via Writing
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.06670
Social robots are becoming an integrated part of our daily life due to their\nability to provide companionship and entertainment. A subfield of robotics,\nSocially Assistive Robotics (SAR), is particularly suitable for expanding these\nbenefits into the healthcare setting because of its unique ability to provide\ncognitive, social, and emotional support. This paper presents our recent\nresearch on developing SAR by evaluating the ability of a life-like\nconversational social robot, called Ryan, to administer internet-delivered\ncognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) to older adults with depression. For Ryan\nto administer the therapy, we developed a dialogue-management system, called\nProgram-R. Using an accredited CBT manual for the treatment of depression, we\ncreated seven hour-long iCBT dialogues and integrated them into Program-R using\nArtificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML). To assess the effectiveness of\nRobot-based iCBT and users' likability of our approach, we conducted an HRI\nstudy with a cohort of elderly people with mild-to-moderate depression over a\nperiod of four weeks. Quantitative analyses of participant's spoken responses\n(e.g. word count and sentiment analysis), face-scale mood scores, and exit\nsurveys, strongly support the notion robot-based iCBT is a viable alternative\nto traditional human-delivered therapy.\n