The worldwide population of older adults will soon exceed the capacity of assisted living facilities. Accordingly, we aim to understand whether appropriately designed robots could help older adults stay active at home. Building on related literature as well as guidance from experts in game design, rehabilitation, and physical and occupational therapy, we developed eight human-robot exercise games for the Baxter Research Robot, six of which involve physical human-robot contact. After extensive iteration, these games were tested in an exploratory user study including 20 younger adult and 20 older adult users. Only socially and physically interactive games fell in the highest ranges for pleasantness, enjoyment, engagement, cognitive challenge, and energy level. Our games successfully spanned three different physical, cognitive, and temporal challenge levels. User trust and confidence in Baxter increased significantly between pre- and post-study assessments. Older adults experienced higher exercise, energy, and engagement levels than younger adults, and women rated the robot more highly than men on several survey questions. The results indicate that social-physical exercise with a robot is more pleasant, enjoyable, engaging, cognitively challenging, and energetic than similar interactions that lack physical touch. In addition to this main finding, researchers working in similar areas can build on our design practices, our open-source resources, and the age-group and gender differences that we found.

中文翻译：

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与百特一起锻炼：辅助人机交互性的物理物理支持。

世界范围内的老年人口将很快超过辅助生活设施的能力。因此，我们旨在了解设计适当的机器人是否可以帮助老年人保持活跃的状态。基于相关文献以及游戏设计，康复以及物理和职业治疗专家的指导，我们为百特研究机器人开发了八款人机交互游戏，其中六本涉及人机交互。经过广泛的迭代，这些游戏在一个探索性用户研究中进行了测试，包括20个年轻的成年人和20个年龄较大的成年人。只有社交和肢体互动游戏在愉悦性，娱乐性，互动性，认知挑战性和精力水平方面属于最高范围。我们的游戏成功跨越了三种不同的身体，认知，和时间挑战水平。在研究前后，用户对百特的信任和信心大大提高。老年人比年轻人具有更高的运动，精力和参与水平，在几个调查问题上，女性对机器人的评价高于男性。结果表明，与缺乏身体接触的类似互动相比，使用机器人进行的社会体育锻炼更令人愉悦，愉悦，参与，认知挑战和充满活力。除了这一主要发现之外，从事类似领域工作的研究人员还可以利用我们的设计实践，我们的开源资源以及发现的年龄组和性别差异。和参与度要比年轻人低，在几个调查问题上，女性对机器人的评价也高于男性。结果表明，与缺乏身体接触的类似互动相比，使用机器人进行的社会体育锻炼更令人愉悦，愉悦，参与，认知挑战和充满活力。除了这一主要发现之外，从事类似领域工作的研究人员还可以利用我们的设计实践，我们的开源资源以及发现的年龄组和性别差异。和参与度要比年轻人低，在几个调查问题上，女性对机器人的评价都高于男性。结果表明，与缺乏身体接触的类似互动相比，使用机器人进行的社会体育锻炼更令人愉悦，愉悦，参与，认知挑战和充满活力。除了这一主要发现之外，从事类似领域工作的研究人员还可以利用我们的设计实践，我们的开源资源以及发现的年龄组和性别差异。