Modeling a Pre-Touch Reaction Distance around Socially Touchable Upper Body Parts of a Robot

Although before-touch situations are essential to achieve natural touch interactions between people and robots, they receive less attention than after-touch situations. This study reports pre-touch reaction distance analysis results around touchable upper body parts, i.e., shoulders, elbows, and hands, based on human–human pre-touch interaction. We also analyzed the effects of gender, approach side, speed, and acclimation in modeling the pre-touch reaction distance, and found that the distance around the hands is smaller than the distance around the shoulders and elbows, and speed and acclimation affect the distance. On the other hand, gender and approach side do not significantly affect the pre-touch reaction distance. Finally, we implemented the results in a male-looking android and confirmed that it reacted toward pre-touch based on the obtained model.

Multi-Touch Interaction Generation Device by Spatiotemporally Switching Electrodes

With the spread of devices equipped with touch panels, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, the opportunity for users to perform touch interaction has increased. In this paper, we constructed a device that generates multi-touch interactions to realize high-speed, continuous, or hands-free touch input on a touch panel. The proposed device consists of an electrode sheet printed with multiple electrodes using conductive ink and a voltage control board, and generates eight multi-touch interactions: tap, double-tap, long-press, press-and-tap, swipe, pinch-in, pinch-out, and rotation, by changing the capacitance of the touch panel in time and space. In preliminary experiments, we investigated the appropriate electrode size and spacing for generating multi-touch interactions, and then implemented the device. From the evaluation experiments, it was confirmed that the proposed device can generate multi-touch interactions with high accuracy. As a result, tap, press-and-tap, swipe, pinch-in, pinch-out, and rotation can be generated with a success rate of 100%. It was confirmed that all the multi-touch interactions evaluated by the proposed device could be generated with high accuracy and acceptable speed.

Technical Challenges for Smooth Interaction With Seniors With Dementia: Lessons From Humanitude™

Due to cognitive and socio-emotional decline and mental diseases, senior citizens, especially people with dementia (PwD), struggle to interact smoothly with their caregivers. Therefore, various care techniques have been proposed to develop good relationships with seniors. Among them, Humanitude is one promising technique that provides caregivers with useful interaction skills to improve their relationships with PwD, from four perspectives: face-to-face interaction, verbal communication, touch interaction, and helping care receivers stand up (physical interaction). Regardless of advances in elderly care techniques, since current social robots interact with seniors in the same manner as they do with younger adults, they lack several important functions. For example, Humanitude emphasizes the importance of interaction at a relatively intimate distance to facilitate communication with seniors. Unfortunately, few studies have developed an interaction model for clinical care communication. In this paper, we discuss the current challenges to develop a social robot that can smoothly interact with PwDs and overview the interaction skills used in Humanitude as well as the existing technologies.