Marcel Heerink

Saxion University of Applied Sciences · Ethics and Technology research group

Objectives Robots have the potential to enable new ways to improve the lives of people with special needs. This bibliometric review explored the nature of research that had referred to robots in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders and psychology, outlining the range of research areas, most prolific researchers, outlets for research dissemin...

As robotic applications become increasingly diverse, more domains of human lives are being involved, now also extending to educational, therapeutic, and social situations, with a trend to even more complex interactions. This diversity generates new research questions that need to be met with an adequate infrastructure of psychological methods and t...

Dementia has become a major health problem with an equally important economic impact on our society and enabling patients with dementia and their caregivers to improve their quality of life and dignity is a great challenge. A significant solution to meet the challenge, could be the use of Personal Virtual Assistant (PVA). The aim of this paper is t...

Over 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia and it is expected that this will double every 20 years. With our project "Living well with Anne" we aim to develop a virtual agent, called Anne which can help people with dementia to continue living independently in their own homes and support their caregivers in their caring tasks. The pro...

Hospitalization is a stressful experience for children. Socially assistive robots (SARs), designed to interact with humans, might be a means to mitigate a child's stress and support its well-being. A systematic state-of-the-art review was performed to inventorize the use of SARs in hospital to support children's well-being and what the effects are....

This pilot study explores the feasibility of using the KIBO Robot as an engaging platform to positively impact social and emotional development in children with ASD. KIBO is a programmable toy robot originally designed to teach coding and sequencing to neuro-typical children between 4 and 7 years of age. To assess its use in children with severe AS...

Het uitgangspunt van dit boekje is een (SIA RAAK Pro) project Sociale robots in de zorg; van experiment tot zorgpraktijk van Zuyd Hogeschool in samenwerking met Windesheim Hogeschool, Adelante Zorggroep, Heliomare, University of Siena en de University of Hertfordshire. Vanaf de start van het onderzoeksproject in 2013, is er voor gekozen om het onde...

Hospitalization is a stressful experience for children. In hospitals in the Netherlands child life specialists are appointed to support the wellbeing of these children by, amongst others, offering play and self-expression activities. In this paper, we report on a study, still in progress, to evaluate the potential of a new technology (pet robot PLE...

The aim of this study is to synthesize the existing literature on hospital hygiene and robotic animals to provide researchers and professionals that use robotic animals in this environment with tools and guidelines. The conducted literature review leads to the conclusion that cleaning procedures reported in the included studies and hygienic guideli...

In Buddhism, a key aspect of interaction between humans mutually and between humans and other social beings, is empathy. In this paper this concept is defined and applied to different aspects of human-robot relations as a first step towards Buddhist approach of this field.

The aim of this study is to synthesize the existing literature on hygiene and robotic animals to provide researchers and professionals that use robotic animals with tools and guidelines regarding the hygienic application of this technology in a hospital environment.

This paper describes a path to practical guidelines for professional caregivers and family members who want to use pet robots in the care for persons with dementia. It reports how a literature study, which included the use of related techniques, was combined with interviews with professional caregivers and field studies. The result of this triangle...

This study explores the possibility of alternative pet robots to be used in dementia care. It describes how both caregivers and dementia patients in Spain and The Netherlands were exposed to alternatives and asked to make a choice for the one they considered most suitable or felt most attracted to. The results indicate that this field would benefit...

Robot assisted therapy has been applied in care for older adults who suffer from dementia for over ten years. Strong effects like improved interaction and signs of a higher sense of wellbeing have been reported. Still it is unclear which features are needed and which robotic pets would are suitable for this therapy. In this explorative research we...

Robot-assisted therapy has been researched for more than a decade and has been dominated by the seal shaped robot Paro. It is however unclear unto what extent the development of Paro has been based upon requirements that are mentioned by care professionals. In this pilot study we interviewed two groups of healthcare professionals: one that has been...

Emotional factors related to aging at home assistive technology are known to affect technology acceptance, effective use, and quality of life improvement. This paper is a survey on the affective dimension of robot-based systems conceived for helping elderly at home. The specificity of elders' capabilities (e.g. sensory and cognitive), coping styles...

This paper presents an analysis of two comparable studies with LEGO Robotics-based activities in a social skills training program for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). One study has been carried out with a group of 16 children in the Unit of Pediatrics Psychology and Psychiatry in HSJD in Barcelona, Spain and the other with a group of...

In dit boek laat Marcel Heerink zien wat er in het verleden allemaal is gezegd en geschreven over de mogelijkheden, beperkingen en bedreigingen van robots. En wat er aan zit te komen, gebaseerd op wat er in laboratoria over de hele wereld ontwikkeld wordt: wat voor robots er in de laboratoria staan, wat voor robots binnenkort algemeen gebruikt zull...

This paper presents a study on measuring (1) how children experience a pet robot, (2) how they play with it and (3) how children's perceptions on and interaction with pet robots are interrelated. The study features different types of subjective and objective techniques to assess the degree of perceived social entity from self-reports (i.e. question...

Older adults prefer an assistive technology that can be adaptive to their needs. However, as an assistive social robot that is autonomous has the possibility of being pro-actively adaptive this could cause feelings of anxiety. Analyzing the results of a study with video's that feature an assistive social robot in alternate conditions we found that...

It is generally recognized that non perceptual factors like age, gender, education and computer experience can have a moderating effect on how perception of a technology leads to acceptance of it. In our present research we are exploring the influence of these factors on the acceptance of assistive social robots by older adults. In this short paper...

This paper proposes a model of technology acceptance that is specifically developed to test the acceptance of assistive social agents by elderly users. The research in this paper develops and tests an adaptation and theoretical extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) by explaining intent to use not only in terms...

The focus of this thesis is to develop a methodology that leads to both the explanation and prediction of the influences on acceptance of assistive social robots by elderly users. This drove us to find a method to explain and predict the influences on acceptance of assistive social robots by elderly users. We therefore answered the following sub-qu...

Exploring the relationship between social presence, conversational expressiveness, and robot acceptance, we set up an experiment with a robot in an eldercare institution, comparing a more and less social condition. Participants showed more expressiveness with a more social agent and a higher score on expressiveness correlated with higher scores on...

The human robot interaction community is multidisciplinary by nature and has members from social science to engineering backgrounds. In this paper we aim to provide human robot developers with a straightforward toolkit to evaluate users' acceptance of assistive social robots they are designing or developing for elderly care environments. We will ex...

When using a robot or a screen agent, elderly users might feel more enjoyment if they experience a stronger social presence. In two experiments with a robotic agent and a screen agent (both n = 30) this relationship between these two concepts could be confirmed. In addition, both studies showed that social presence correlates with the Intention to...

Assistive social robots, a particular type of assistive robotics designed for social interaction with humans, could play an important role with respect to the health and psycho-logical well-being of the elderly. Objectives Assistive social robots are believed to be useful in eldercare for two reasons, a functional one and an affective one. Such rob...

Onderzoek in zorg en welzijn is een praktische inleiding in de onderzoeksmethodologie voor sociaalagogische opleidingen. Een juiste onderzoekshouding is belangrijk om goed onderzoek te kunnen doen. Dit boek biedt een helder overzicht met duidelijke aanknopingspunten voor het opzetten, uitvoeren en verwerken van een onderzoek. Met behulp van toegan...

Personal robots and screen agents can be equipped with social abilities to facilitate interaction. This paper describes our research on the influence of these abilities on elderly user's acceptance of such a system. Experiments were set up in eldercare institutions where a robotic and screen agent with simulated conversational capabilities were use...

Summary form only given. The possibilities of using robots in eldercare have inspired a growing number of research projects. Not only can robotic technologies be used for rehabilitation, also they could facilitate the work of caregivers and provide social company for elders. In our project we are interested in the acceptance of robotic technology b...

When using a robot or a screen agent, elderly users might feel more enjoyment if they experience a stronger social presence. In two experiments with a robotic agent and a screen agent (both n=30) this relationship between these two concepts could be established. Besides, both studies showed that social presence correlates with the intention to use...

In this paper we describe the development and exploration of the concept of Perceived Adaptiveness, based on observations in previous experiments with a robotic companion in eldercare and on findings in related research. We integrated this concept in our technology acceptance methodology for robotic eldercare companions and found in experiments wit...

In this paper we explore the concept of enjoyment as a possible factor influencing acceptance of robotic technology by elderly people. We describe an experiment with a conversational robot and elderly users (n=30) that incorporates both a test session and a long term user observation. The experiment did confirm the hypothesis that perceived enjoyme...

Based on observations in previous experiments with a robotic companion in eldercare and on findings in related literature, we developed the concept of Perceived Adaptiveness. We integrated this in our technology acceptance methodology for robotic eldercare companions and found in a small experiment that adaptiveness of the system as perceived by el...

If robotic companions are to be used in the near future by aging adults, they have to be accepted by them. In the process of developing a methodology to measure, predict and explain acceptance of robotic companions, we researched the influence of social abilities, social presence and perceived enjoyment. After an experiment (n=30) that included col...

While expressiveness in human communication is a natural and widely observed phenomenon, in studies of humans interacting with robots and screen agents it is relatively unexplored. If it occurs however, this could mean that the artificial personality is accepted as a conversation partner by the user. An experiment with a robot and a screen agent in...

This study examines the influence of perceived social abilities of a robot on user's attitude towards and acceptance of the robot. An interface robot with simulated conversational capabilities was used in a Wizard of Oz experiment with two conditions: a more socially communicative (the robot made use of a larger set of social abilities in interacti...

Goal of this study is to examine the influence of social abilities of a robot on elderly user's attitude towards and acceptance of the robot. Experiments were set up in eldercare institutions where an interface robot with simulated conversational capabilities was used in a Wizard of Oz experiment. The robot was used with two conditions: a more soci...

This study examines the influence of perceived social abilities of a robot on user's attitude towards and acceptance of the robot. An interface robot with simulated conversational capabilities was used in a Wizard of Oz experiment with two conditions: a more socially communicative (the robot made use of a larger set of social abilities in interacti...

This paper describes our experiences in collecting user data on human-robot interaction in nursing homes for the elderly. Learnings from two experiments were used to develop guidelines to support human-robot user studies with elderly users, in particular for experiments in an eldercare institution. Our experiences show that this demands a very stri...