Abstract
This column will try to describe the characteristics of current cyberpsychology research in Europe. In particular, CyberEurope aims at describing the leading research groups and projects running on the other side of the Ocean.
The SOCRATES project is a European PhD training network for young scientists active in the area of interactive social robotics aiming at eldercare. The unique multidisciplinary project trains researchers with both academic and entrepreneurial spirit and expertise, well suited for a career in both academy and industry.
Eldercare is a major societal challenge for Europe. By 2050, the number of older adults in many countries will exceed 30%. To reduce the social and economic impact, technological solutions are needed, and robot technology is expected to play an important role. To achieve acceptable solutions, with natural, ethical, safe, and efficient human–robot interaction (HRI), a major push in social robotics is necessary.
Social robotics is an important trend within HRI; the goal is to equip robots with cognitive abilities so they can interact with humans by adhering to certain social cues and rules. This requires well-functioning interaction at several levels: exchange of low-level physical information, but also exchange of higher-level concepts such as actions, intentions, beliefs, emotions, and attention. The interaction must adapt to changing tasks, environments, and humans, and must also be socially acceptable and safe. Social interaction with older adults is even more complex, since it must accommodate different levels of physical and cognitive abilities affecting perception, coordination, concentration, focus, and memory. Interaction is still a limiting factor for older adults to accept assistive robots.
To meet these challenges, the SOCRATES project addresses research in social robotics and focuses on interaction quality—a term introduced as a way to describe how fit a specific mode of interaction is for a given task, situation, and human. This is a novel research perspective in social robotics. The research objective is to improve the robot's ability to interact with older adults in a natural, ethical, safe, and efficient way. Interaction quality also depends on the robot's functionality and design, and will be addressed from a range of perspectives in five research work packages: (a) emotion: novel multimodal methods to perceive human emotions from facial expressions, body motion, and auditory and language cues; (b) intention: new techniques to infer human goals and intention from natural language and video analysis; (c) adaptivity: techniques to adapt a robot's behavior to users' needs; (d) design: novel design methods for hardware, interfaces, and safety; and (e) acceptance: procedures for evaluation of user acceptance.
A holistic approach to design and development of socially interacting robots is essential to achieve successful acceptance and adoption of the robotic systems by older adults. Social and psychological aspects must be considered by systematically involving end users. Successful research training in social robotics must be a multidisciplinary process that integrates technical knowledge of hardware and software, psychological knowledge of interaction dynamics, social knowledge of the users, and domain-specific knowledge of the target application. Furthermore, for successful penetration into society, business aspects must also be considered.
The aim of the SOCRATES program is to implement a successful multidisciplinary and intersectoral PhD training program in order to develop the field of social robotics focusing on interaction quality aspects, with a clear application focus on robotics in eldercare. This aim will be accomplished by achieving the following objectives:
(a) Recruiting 15 early-stage researchers and providing them with interdisciplinary training comprising:
User-driven research in the five key thematic areas (emotion, intention, adaptivity, design, and acceptance), focusing on applications of robotics in eldercare; Multidisciplinary and multi-methodological training in six disciplinary areas: cognitive science, computer science, social psychology, robotics, systems integration, and business entrepreneurship; and Hands-on experience of knowledge transfer, business development, and commercialization of robots, through training by the industrial and business-oriented partners in the consortium; (b) Training in complementary/transferable skills to promote a career in both academia and industry.
Additional value and impact is generated by the unique multidisciplinary collaboration between academic disciplines that normally do not work together: computer science, cognitive science, biomechanics, ethics, social psychology, and social science. Intersectoral collaboration between academia, caregivers, business developers, and robot manufacturers will further strengthen novelty and impact by ensuring that relevant needs are addressed, and that research result are both economically and technically feasible.
The outcome of SOCRATES will be a new generation of researchers with the ability to interact with scholars from different “schools of thought” in areas that are well within as well as outside of their areas of expertise.
Sources: Cordis, European Commission and European Union