Evaluation of a spatial language interpretation framework for natural human-robot interaction with older adults

We present the design and analysis of a multi-session user study conducted with older adults to evaluate the effectiveness of a human-robot interaction (HRI) framework utilizing a neuroscience-inspired spatial language interpretation approach. The user study was designed to: 1) evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of the spatial language interpretation framework with target users, and 2) collect data on the types of phrases, responses, and format of natural language instructions given by target users to help inform possible modifications to the HRI framework. In addition, an expanded study was conducted on Amazon´s Mechanical Turk to gather further natural language instructions from general users for analysis. The results of both studies, evaluated across a variety of objective performance and participant evaluation measures, demonstrate the feasibility of the approach and its effectiveness in interpreting and following natural language instructions from target users, achieving high task success rates and high participant evaluations across multiple measures.