Psychological and social effects of robot assisted activity to elderly people who stay at a health service facility for the aged

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cat and seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapy. We have applied seal robots to assisting activity of elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In order to investigate psychological and social effects of seal robots to the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people´s moods by face scales (which express person´s moods by illustration of person´s faces) and Profile of Mood States (which measures person´s moods by questionnaires). Seal robots were provided into the facility for three weeks. As the results, feelings of elderly people were improved by interaction with the seal robots.