{"64852":{"#nid":"64852","#data":{"type":"news","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor people, being touched can initiate many different\nreactions from comfort to discomfort, from intimacy to aggression. But how\nmight people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would\nthey take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at the Georgia\nInstitute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward\nbeing touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot\u2019s\nintent made a significant difference. The research is being presented today at\nthe Human-Robot Interaction conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat we found was that how people perceived the intent of the\nrobot was really important to how they responded. So, even though the robot\ntouched people in the same way, if people thought the robot was doing that to\nclean them, versus doing that to comfort them, it made a significant difference\nin the way they responded and whether they found that contact favorable or\nnot,\u201d said Charlie Kemp, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter\nDepartment of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the study, researchers looked at how people responded when\na robotic nurse, known as Cody, touched and wiped a person\u2019s forearm. Although\nCody touched the \u0026nbsp;subjects\nin exactly the same way, they reacted more positively when they believed Cody\nintended to clean their arm versus when they believed Cody intended to comfort\nthem. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThese results echo similar studies done with nurses. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere have been studies of nurses and they\u2019ve looked at how\npeople respond to physical contact with nurses,\u201d said Kemp, who is also an\nadjunct professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing. \u201cAnd they found that,\nin general, if people interpreted the touch of the nurse as being instrumental,\nas being important to the task, then people were OK with it. But if people\ninterpreted the touch as being to provide comfort \u2026 people were not so\ncomfortable with that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition, Kemp and his research team tested whether people\nresponded more favorably when the robot verbally indicated that it was about to\ntouch them versus touching them without saying anything beforehand.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe results suggest that people preferred when the robot did\nnot actually give them the warning,\u201d said Tiffany Chen, doctoral student at\nGeorgia Tech. \u201cWe think this might be because they were startled when the robot\nstarted speaking, but the results are generally inconclusive.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003ESince many useful tasks require that a robot touch a person,\nthe team believes that future research should investigate ways to make robot\ntouch more acceptable to people, especially in healthcare. Many important\nhealthcare tasks, such as wound dressing and assisting with hygiene, would\nrequire a robotic nurse to touch the patient\u0027s body, \u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf we want robots to be successful in healthcare, we\u2019re going\nto need to think about how do we make those robots communicate their intention\nand how do people interpret the intentions of the robot,\u201d added Kemp. \u201cAnd I\nthink people haven\u2019t been as focused on that until now. Primarily people have\nbeen focused on how can we make the robot safe, how can we make it do its task\neffectively. But that\u2019s not going to be enough if we actually want these robots\nout there helping people in the real world.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to Kemp and Chen, the research group consists of\nAndrea Thomaz, assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing, and\npostdoctoral fellow Chih-Hung Aaron King.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn an initial study, researchers at the Georgia\nInstitute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward\nbeing touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot\u2019s\nintent made a significant difference.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Charlie Kemp\u0027s lab investigates how people react to a robot in a healthcare setting."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2011-03-09 10:31:12","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:08:22","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-03-09T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-03-09T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"64850":{"id":"64850","type":"image","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?  Photo - Cody","body":null,"created":"1449176783","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:06:23","changed":"1475894571","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:51","alt":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot?  Photo - Cody","file":{"fid":"192112","name":"Cody.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Cody_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/Cody_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2063184,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/Cody_0.jpg?itok=YHSxNgzR"}},"64854":{"id":"64854","type":"image","title":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot - Shot of Study","body":null,"created":"1449176783","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:06:23","changed":"1475894571","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:51","alt":"How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot - Shot of Study","file":{"fid":"192113","name":"cody.studyshot.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":143140,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cody.studyshot_0.jpg?itok=QVkrp_tT"}}},"media_ids":["64850","64854"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/healthcare-robotics.com\/","title":"Healthcare Robotics Lab"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.hsi.gatech.edu\/hrl\/pdf\/hri2011.pdf","title":"Paper: Touched By a Robot: An Investigation of Subjective Responses to Robot-initiated Touch,"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"11526","name":"Andrea Thomaz"},{"id":"1612","name":"BME"},{"id":"2157","name":"Charlie Kemp"},{"id":"12320","name":"Cody"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"594","name":"college of engineering"},{"id":"4887","name":"GVU Center"},{"id":"2494","name":"Health Systems Institute"},{"id":"12319","name":"Healthcare Robotics Lab"},{"id":"11892","name":"RIM@GT"},{"id":"1356","name":"robot"},{"id":"166848","name":"School of Interactive Computing"},{"id":"12318","name":"Tiffany Chen"},{"id":"12317","name":"Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}