Comparing Ultrasonic and Force Feedback to Foster Older Adults’ Engagement in Cognitive Activities Facilitated by a Robot

Engaging in cognitive activities early and regularly has been shown to improve cognitive performance and delay the natural progres-sion of cognitive decline for older adults. Many factors can make it diffi-cult to achieve this, such as lack of engagement, highlighting the need for technology that can enhance engagement with cognitive activities. This paper investigates the unique combination of haptic feedback and a so-cially assistive robot during categorization-based activities. Kinesthetic (force) feedback led to improvements in factors such as usability and affective state compared to cutaneous (ultrasonic) feedback. The robot facilitation positively impacted older adults’ performance and their per-ception of usability and interactivity compared to video/audio. Some design considerations emerged including the themes of control and infor-mativeness of haptic feedback and the proxemics of the robot. This work supports the combination of haptic feedback, specifically force feedback, along with a SAR to foster engagement with cognitive activities for older adults.