Opportunities to Talk, Negotiate, and Laugh: Robot Behaviors That Shape Repeated Interactions in Groups of Older Adults

Abstract

Feeling socially connected is important for personal well-being, yet many older adults report increasing loneliness and decreasing social connections. We explored how robots and their behaviors can support group interactions and foster social participation among older adults in a community center setting over repeated interactions. We developed a semi-autonomous collaborative and discussion-based variant of the game "With Other Words" for groups of three to four older adults and two robots. A facilitator robot (Furhat) mediated discussions using gaze and verbal support, while a guesser robot (Misty) attempted to guess the words that group members described 'with other words'. We invited 34 older adults aged 65+ to play the game in groups of three or four, three times over two to five weeks. An explorative mixed-method analysis, combining quantitative metrics with Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (EMCA), shows that robot gaze and verbal behaviors as well as negotiations around "wrangling" the guesser robot encouraged participation in the game. Further, verbal supporting behaviors elicited shared laughter but also led to breakdowns. While no direct significant improvement in social connectedness was observed, this work contributes to our understanding of how robot behaviors might shape interactions among older adults.