Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults
Sustained attention is essential for older adults to maintain an active lifestyle, and the deficiency of this function is often associated with health-related risks such as falling and frailty. The present study examined whether the well-established age-effect on reducing mind-wandering, the drift t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-10-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/21/7142 |
| _version_ | 1797511770064027648 |
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| author | Yi-Chen Chen Su-Ling Yeh Tsung-Ren Huang Yu-Ling Chang Joshua O. S. Goh Li-Chen Fu |
| author_facet | Yi-Chen Chen Su-Ling Yeh Tsung-Ren Huang Yu-Ling Chang Joshua O. S. Goh Li-Chen Fu |
| author_sort | Yi-Chen Chen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Sustained attention is essential for older adults to maintain an active lifestyle, and the deficiency of this function is often associated with health-related risks such as falling and frailty. The present study examined whether the well-established age-effect on reducing mind-wandering, the drift to internal thoughts that are seen to be detrimental to attentional control, could be replicated by using a robotic experimenter for older adults who are not as familiar with online technologies. A total of 28 younger and 22 older adults performed a Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) by answering thought probes regarding their attention states and providing confidence ratings for their own task performances. The indices from the modified SART suggested a well-documented conservative response strategy endorsed by older adults, which were represented by slower responses and increased omission errors. Moreover, the slower responses and increased omissions were found to be associated with less self-reported mind-wandering, thus showing consistency with their higher subjective ratings of attentional control. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of constructing age-related cognitive profiles with attention evaluation instruction based on a social companion robot for older adults at home. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T05:52:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4464985d695f427090466fa45a04154c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T05:52:46Z |
| publishDate | 2021-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-4464985d695f427090466fa45a04154c2023-11-22T21:37:12ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202021-10-012121714210.3390/s21217142Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older AdultsYi-Chen Chen0Su-Ling Yeh1Tsung-Ren Huang2Yu-Ling Chang3Joshua O. S. Goh4Li-Chen Fu5Department of Psychology, College of Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanDepartment of Psychology, College of Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanDepartment of Psychology, College of Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanDepartment of Psychology, College of Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanDepartment of Psychology, College of Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanDepartment of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, TaiwanSustained attention is essential for older adults to maintain an active lifestyle, and the deficiency of this function is often associated with health-related risks such as falling and frailty. The present study examined whether the well-established age-effect on reducing mind-wandering, the drift to internal thoughts that are seen to be detrimental to attentional control, could be replicated by using a robotic experimenter for older adults who are not as familiar with online technologies. A total of 28 younger and 22 older adults performed a Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) by answering thought probes regarding their attention states and providing confidence ratings for their own task performances. The indices from the modified SART suggested a well-documented conservative response strategy endorsed by older adults, which were represented by slower responses and increased omission errors. Moreover, the slower responses and increased omissions were found to be associated with less self-reported mind-wandering, thus showing consistency with their higher subjective ratings of attentional control. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of constructing age-related cognitive profiles with attention evaluation instruction based on a social companion robot for older adults at home.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/21/7142agingsocial companion robotsustained attentionmind-wanderingcognitive evaluation |
| spellingShingle | Yi-Chen Chen Su-Ling Yeh Tsung-Ren Huang Yu-Ling Chang Joshua O. S. Goh Li-Chen Fu Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults Sensors aging social companion robot sustained attention mind-wandering cognitive evaluation |
| title | Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults |
| title_full | Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults |
| title_fullStr | Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults |
| title_full_unstemmed | Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults |
| title_short | Social Robots for Evaluating Attention State in Older Adults |
| title_sort | social robots for evaluating attention state in older adults |
| topic | aging social companion robot sustained attention mind-wandering cognitive evaluation |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/21/7142 |
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