What is a robot companion - friend, assistant or butler?
Open accessAbstract
The study presented in this paper explored people's perceptions and attitudes towards the idea of a future robot companion for the home. A human-centred approach was adopted using questionnaires and human-robot interaction trials to derive data from 28 adults. Results indicated that a large proportion of participants were in favour of a robot companion and saw the potential role as being an assistant, machine or servant. Few wanted a robot companion to be a friend. Household tasks were preferred to child/animal care tasks. Humanlike communication was desirable for a robot companion, whereas humanlike behaviour and appearance were less essential. Results are discussed in relation to future research directions for the development of robot companions.
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Some studies indicate older adults' preference for using robots for household purposes more than for companionship.
“Specific to older adults, some studies in HCI and HRI indicate older adults' preference for using robots for household purposes more than for companionship [5,13]”
From "Phantom Friend" or "Just a Box with Information": Personification and Ontological Categorization of Smart Speaker-based Voice Assistants by Older Adults (2019) · cites this paper as [13]
In “Acceptance of robot companions” (page unavailable), 96.4% of participants wanted a robot that could do household jobs, while none of the study’s older participants wanted one as a friend. But the study’s limitations (page unavailable) state that no participant was older than 55, so its findings do not establish this preference for older adults generally. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Dautenhahn, K., Woods, S., Kaouri, C., Walters, M. L., Koay, K. L., & Werry, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Hertfordshire (GB)
- Venue
- 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2005
- Pages
- 1192-1197
- ISSN
- 2153-0858 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2165332998
- Cited by
- 540
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 24.48
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (publishedVersion)
- University of Hertfordshire Research Archive (University of Hertfordshire) (acceptedVersion)
- University of Hertfordshire Research Archive (University of Hertfordshire) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › AI in Service Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Robotics and Automated Systems
- Keywords
- companion robots, home robots, human-robot interaction, user attitudes, housework, robot appearance
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