Examining the impact of a user's previous experience with pets on robot-assisted therapy

Abstract

Recently, the use of animal-type robots for therapeutic applications has emerged. In order to verify the utility of robot-assisted therapy (RAT), the present paper examined the impact of a user's previous experience with real pets on robot-assisted therapy. Thirty-three participants were recruited for the study, and were divided into two groups: people with previous experience with real pets, and people with no previous experience with real pets. A robotic dog Genibo was presented to both groups of people, and their psychological wellbeing was measured before and after the experiment. The results revealed that the participants who had previous pet experience showed a significant improvement in their psychological wellbeing compared to participants with no previous pet experience. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.