Analysis of Utterance in Long-Term Robot Assisted Activity for Elderly People

A long-term experiment of robot assisted activity for elderly people has been conducted at a health service facility for the aged since Aug. 2003. Three therapeutic seal robots, Paro, were introduced there. This paper describes the results of the experiment for one year. Face scales that consist of illustrations of person's faces were used to evaluate person's moods. In addition, utterances of elderly to seal robots were analyzed quantitatively. As the results, numbers of the utterance of elderly people were increased, and their feelings were improved by interaction with the seal robots.