Effects of interaction with an animal-type therapy robot on attentional control, emotional regulation, and resilience

Abstract

In the present study, we examined whether interaction with an animal-type therapy robot, PARO, improved executive attention, the emotional regulation, and resilience. There were three groups: the animal-robot group that interacted with PARO (14 participants), the human-robot group that interacted with the human-type robot, Robi (12 participants), and the control group that did not interact with the robot (15 participants). Both the animal-robot and human-robot groups interacted with the robots on eight times for 10 weeks. Participants completed executive-attention and emotional-regulation scales before and after the interactions and a resilience scale during the interaction. The results showed that the attentional control score, the subscale of executive attention, was significantly higher in the post-interaction period than in the pre-interaction period. The interaction between groups and periods showed that the animal-type robot group improved the emotional regulation after the interaction. There was no significant difference between groups in resilience. These results indicated that interaction with the animal-type therapy robot PARO partially improved emotional regulation.