Human-Robot Interactions: The Future of Aging with Dr. Wendy Rogers

Well, one thing to remember that when we use the term AI, it has a lot of different meanings. We've started to hear a lot in the news about generative AI, which is just one type of artificial intelligence. And I think some of the social robots are using that type of generative AI to make it much more conversational. Welcome back to the Neurologic podcast coming to you from the CVL at UT Dallas. I'm your host Amber Kidwai and I'm Sarah Munair. Today's conversation is with Dr. Wendy Rogers, a professor of applied health sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champagne, and a certified human factors professional. In this episode, we discussed the intersection of design, technology and aging. As technology becomes a bigger part of our everyday lives, it raises questions about how it can affect people's dignity, independence and well-being as they age. Dr. Rogers Research focuses on understanding how people interact with technology and how those interactions change as we age. Her work on human factors is about understanding how we can design technology with human behavior in mind. We also talk about really exciting work on assistive robots, including robots designed to assist in social connection, caregiving support, daily activities, and even dementia care. And we discuss where AI is actually really useful and where it isn't as advanced as it seems. So whether you're interested in aging, robotics, or how technology fits into our everyday lives, our conversation gets into why human factors matter now more than ever. We hope you enjoy this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. To start off, could you tell us a little bit about your background and what got you into human factors research? Thank you for having me. I was trained as a cognitive psychologist and started exploring how people acquire new skills and specifically older adults and whether their scale acquisition differs from younger adults. And I got into the topic of technology because that's what a lot of older adults need to learn. And as I started looking at how people learn new technology, it was clear that not all technology is well designed. And that's the human factor side of things to try to improve the design of technology to make it easier for humans. Okay, so that's the definition of human factors. Designing for human use. Perfect. That's the short definition. Okay, awesome. So when people hear technology and aging, they often think of medical devices. So from a human factors perspective, what should they really be thinking about? I think the fact that there's technology everywhere in our world and it's becoming almost impossible to do your everyday activities without interacting with technology. If you think about technology in the home from your microwave, your washing machine, to going to the grocery store, driving your car. So I think that I would like for people to think of technology much more broadly than just medical technology. So what's a common misconception that technology designers make when they're thinking about older adults and designing for older adults? Couple of things. One is the idea that older adults are not interested in using new technologies. I think that's not true. I think that older adults want to know why it might be useful to them. And it's very important to provide instructional support for learning new technologies. Some designers say, oh, we're making it intuitive. No instructional support is required, but that's simply not true. Are there any ethical risks when designing technologies for older adults? And when we're not really thinking about directly involving older adults in that process? I think there are ethical risks when we're designing technology for anyone. We need to be aware of privacy concerns, security issues. I think an important aspect is making sure that the person understands how the technology works. And so that may be a little bit of an additional challenge for older adults than younger adults if they don't have technology experience. Right. Right. So how does aging change the way that people are interacting with technology when we're thinking cognitively, physically or emotionally? I think understanding what our normative age-related changes is really important. So our vision changes with age, our hearing changes with age, our touch sensitivity changes with age, as well as cognitive abilities such as working memory, how many things I can keep in mind at one point in time. And so we need to be designing for those capabilities that do tend to change for all of us as we grow older. So why is it a mistake to treat older adults as a single user group? There's so much heterogeneity in older adults. One of the things that's fascinating is if you think about their life experiences, they've accumulated experiences for 60, 70, 80 years, and one person's experiences are very different than another person's experiences. Plus, even though I said there are these normative age-related changes, they don't occur at the same degree for everyone. Some people need glasses at a younger age. Some people's hearing remains intact. Some people's working memory capacity remains quite good. So you really need to understand the capabilities at the level of an individual. I think that kind of goes with every age group, right? There's individual differences and we just kind of forget that when it comes to the older adults. Even things like experience with technology, some young users are very tech savvy and some aren't. Exactly. I guess it's just not not playing a certain bias in just assuming that that one group is all the same. Right, exactly. And you're right. We shouldn't think that younger adults are all the same either. Our college students are all the same or any other demographic. Good point. So how is technology designed differently for care givers versus the person they're actually caring for? Well, I'm not sure the technology per se needs to be designed differently. What we want to think about anytime we're designing technology is what are the users' needs? And so you might think about that the caregiver might have different needs than the care recipient, but you're still following the same processes of user-centered design, ensuring usability, iterative testing of the technology. So the process of design would be the same. But the needs and the features of the technology might differ across user groups. So what kind of challenges do older adults run into when they use things like apps or online portals or medical devices? I think one of the challenges is as I mentioned earlier, not providing instructional support or scaffolding to learn how to use the technology. Here, try this, right, without showing them either a video of how it works. One thing that's very useful is the idea of observability. If I can watch somebody else use it, see how they're interacting with it, and then try it myself. That may also reduce their anxiety about not knowing what they're supposed to do. To just kind of meeting them where they're in terms of being able to learn how to use it rather than just having one manual that everybody uses and assume just a level of experience. And exactly to your point earlier that knowing where they are starting because some of the older adults might have a lot of technology experience, don't waste their time learning how to use a mouse or something very basic if they already know that, but recognize it some people don't even know how to use a mouse or some other basic feature. So we've kind of talked a little bit about like individual differences, right, that can affect how older adults are interacting with technology. So how can things like socioeconomic status, culture or language affect the access of older adults to technologies? So this idea of the digital divide that is talked about is an accessibility issue and who has access to the technology and it does vary as a function of education, income, zip code, where do you live, what broadband access you might have. And so we need to be aware of those social determinants of health can also be social determinants of technology access. Yeah, and so another issue that older adults face is social isolation. And especially in the US, where older adults are more likely to live alone than other countries. And you've done some really interesting work looking at how technology can be used to help with this. So what are some things that you have looked at? We've been exploring opportunities for technology to connect people with family and friends, for example. One project is using virtual reality to enable grandparents to play games with their grandchildren, for example. Another project is using video chat to connect people across topics of shared interest. And it can be new people that just happen to share your interest in ancient Greek history or something. And you might want to talk about that together. So how can we bring people together who may live alone and not have an easy way to find people to communicate with or interact with? Yeah, and I can imagine that having instructions for older adults and how to use these applications is so important. Because a lot of older adults might not have experience with things like Zoom where they can like meet face to face. How do I set that up? And so that's where that instruction comes in and teaching them how to interact with these technologies effectively. Exactly. It's not enough to design the technology well. You need to do that, but then you also need to provide the instructional support on how to use it. So you've also done some work on robots which to assist older adults in their daily activities, in their homes. So that's a really exciting kind of area of research. There's a lot of sci-fi shows out there showing people with robots in their homes. So one of the robots you work with is called stretch. So what kind of things can that robot do? What can you tell us more about it? - Sure, the stretch robot is what's called a mobile manipulator robot. So there's two pieces of that. Mobile, meaning it can move around the space and go where it's needed, and manipulator, meaning that it can pick up things and deliver them to you. So we've been exploring the potential of the stretch robot to support individuals with mobility disabilities, as well as with cognitive impairment, and providing delivering medications, for example, or time for your exercise and providing the video screen that you need for whatever it is you're trying to do. On the cognitive side, it can be used to provide reminders. We're exploring using it in the kitchen to give you a recipe and have it available to you as you need it when you need it. - So who controls the robot? Is it the person themselves or somebody else control it? - There's a number of different ways to control the robot, so it can be controlled by the person themselves through either a hand game controller or a screen interface on the screen, but it can also be controlled by somebody remote. So you might have a stretch robot in your grandparents' home, for example, and you can turn it on and deliver something to them when they need it. It can also be programmed to do certain things at a certain time. So you might think about, it's time to feed the cat when I'm away and the robot is going to put some cat, cat food in the dish at a particular time. - So how'd you come up with the design for these robots? Do you interact with the kind of groups that you're interested in creating them for or how was that done? - So we think about this term human robot interaction. I represent the human. And so I am, as I mentioned, a cognitive psychologist by training. So what is the human's need and the human's capabilities? And then I work with the robot assistants who develop the robot. And so the idea is we're understanding people's needs, sharing that with the technology team and saying, design your robot to do this. This would be very helpful. And so the older adults themselves have shared with us what they would want the robot to do in their home. Can these robots be used to help older adults stay socially connected? I know we talked about applications where individuals are able to do video meetings. How can these robots also assist with this social interaction? - So the robot can be a facilitator of social engagements between people. Like the stretch robot example, delivering the video chat to you when it's time to have the engagement. But the robot can also be the social interaction itself. So a social robot is one that you would talk to and engage with. And it might provide you with reminders about your medication. Or it might just be more of a companion to say, how are you today? What's the weather like outside and having some kind of communication between the human and the robot itself? - Nice. And these robots, how can they be used to assist individuals who might have dementia when maybe their caregivers are not available? - You know, that's one of the things we're just starting to explore is how the robot might be useful to provide maybe just some conversation. So they don't feel so alone if the caregiver has to leave for a short time. It can also be used to assess cognitive status. One thing we're looking at is the interaction with the robot over time. Does that change? Does that give us an index that maybe that person needs more support because their cognitive function is changing over time? - Yes, so what you're saying about the kind of using robots for social assistance, that's just really interesting because I was reading in some of your papers about how they can impact mental health and reduce stress and anxiety and depression, all also loneliness as well, so that's really kind of exciting. But in terms of other aspects of using technology to help older adults, one of the things I was reading about was a telehealth robot, which is something that could potentially be remotely controlled by a physician who could check up on patients who maybe in remote areas, that sounds really kind of like a game changer. So what have you found to be older adults, attitudes towards telehealth robots? Would they be okay with a robot checking up on their health needs? - Yeah, I think we have one study where we explored the use of a telehealth robot for older adults and they were very open to the idea, but probably like any of us, we would want to know when is it turned on, where's the information going, who gets to see it? And so if you think about the way telehealth visits work today, you make an appointment, right? So I know it's time for my telehealth visit. And then you could use the robot, one of the things we were exploring is use of the robot for the physician to maybe zoom in and see, maybe they need to check up on a wound and be able to look at it more closely. Or maybe it's an area that the human is, it's not able to see themselves. And so the physician or the healthcare provider would be able to remotely control the robot to also take vitals and to do other kinds of assessments that they would do if they were there in person. So the older adults were very open and the healthcare providers were very open. And one of the things they told us was more about what kind of tools they would need for the robot to be able to use so that they could do the assessment that they would want to be able to do? So we know that AI is becoming more common in technologies, including for older adults. Are there any concerns that you have for having these AI integrated into these technologies for older adults? We have to think about where the information is going, how it's being controlled, what's being stored, that is always going to be an issue. But other types of artificial intelligence that are used for the robot to learn the space, like the stretch robot can map out your home. Well, that uses a type of artificial intelligence that has been around for quite some time. So I think we want to be aware of what the artificial intelligence does and have some limits in place to control things. Yeah, I think that's just a general concern we have. Not only when it comes to technologies for older adults, but there's a lot of talk on how can we use AI safely. So I think this is like a big area right now, big topic of interest. Exactly. So many age-related technologies promise safety, safety monitoring or alerts. But can they also create new risks, like having a robot on your home, is there like, if you're somebody who's maybe prone to accidents or something like that, could there be, you could have a fall or something related to the, you know, could trip you up or I don't know who land on you or something. Sure. I mean, I think that we have to think about the whole context of the environment where the robot is. And you definitely don't want to be adding any risk. And so if the robot gets in your way, or if the robot is coming up behind you and you don't know it's there and it might startle you, there's also potentially challenges with a robot maybe giving you incorrect information if it's not been controlled or set up properly. So we certainly want to be aware of what are sometimes called unintended consequences, right? You have an idea of what you want the robot to do, but it might end up doing something different. Yeah. So I guess it's just that balancing act of kind of using the technology in the appropriate way and then also making sure, you know, it's got those safeguards in place when it comes to privacy and then information that's been given to the user and then also just kind of the actual physical safety as well. So for example, the stretch robot the developers have built in safety controls. And so if you come into contact with it, it will bounce back. So it's not causing undue pressure for you. There's automatic ways to stop the robot if it comes into contact with things. So the developers are building in these safety precautions. So what kind of things help older users trust a technology and what breaks that trust? Very important question. And we're starting to try to understand that more. How does one develop trust in a robot? You might say how does one develop trust in a human? And it develops over time based on the interactions. Is the robot doing what I expect it to do? Is it doing it reliable? Is it giving the information that I expect? So transparency, reliability, consistency. All of the things that also contribute to human human trust seem to be important for human robot trust as well. Interesting. Where do you think human factors are being most underutilized when it comes to technology and aging? When I think about human factors, I think about it as an approach and a process. And every time you're designing something new, you have to start with this user-centered design process. Who are you designing it for? What are their capabilities? What does it need to do? Prototype, test, iterate, test again, test it with different people, test it in different context. And so that is a human factors process that takes time, but is necessary if you're going to develop. something that's going to be out in the world and helping a wide variety of people. So I think that's where the gap is, that there's not enough of an investment or an understanding of the complexity of what we're trying to do and to allow time for that process. So what makes you most optimistic about the future of technology and aging? Watching where it has come from in the past. So I have been in the field for 35 years working in this space and the advances have been amazing. And the intelligence that we have in our technology has so much potential and I think older adults are more and more willing to try these new technologies. They're more open-minded about using technology and so I think it's this space where people are more interested in trying it and they have high expectations of what they want the technology to do and the technology is becoming more capable of doing those things. So I'm quite optimistic about using technology to support older adults in a variety of contexts. Yeah, I feel like technology is just so much more pervasive in our lives, like for every age group. And the human factors aspect of it is something we kind of take for granted. Like we don't think about, you know, when we're using technology, we don't think about how it might have actually been tailored to us and to how humans work and how humans think. And I remember reading a paper a long time ago about, you know, talking about human factors and things like when there's major incidents, like the Chernobyl incident and how some of those things could have been mitigated if things have been designed better with human cognition in mind and how humans react on distress and how they might deal with certain things. And we kind of take for granted how we've, I guess, learnt from those instances and improved technology to account for how we react on depression or how we respond to technology and how technology actually has become much more kind of designed to fit us versus us having to adapt ourselves to fit the technology. So that's really kind of interesting to think about how that relates to those to people who are aging as well and how those design changes need might be kind of updated as you age. But this is really exciting research and especially the potential to support people who are physically, cognitively impaired, I think across any age group. And even with those robots, I mean, I'm thinking for anybody who has physical limitations or cognitive limitations, it might be such a great thing for them to give them kind of more accessibility to things in life. So when do you think that tools like assistive robots, you know, an AI and that type of thing will become common in people's homes? Well, I think there are already a lot of things like that in people's homes. So the Roomba cleaning robot, for example, Alexa and all those things. And I think there's starting to be more distribution of robotic technologies in different forms. And so I think it's already here and we're going to start seeing more and more of that in the future. So for older adults who are listening and they, you know, might be socially isolated or looking for more social interactions, do you have any suggestions on how they can get started with using these technologies to support social interaction? That's a very good question. I think looking for perhaps online activities that might be of interest to you. Many community groups offer online, online exercise, online learning opportunities. And so if it's difficult for you perhaps to travel or to go to some of these things, look for opportunities to do things like that. And you don't need to know a lot about technology to utilize some of these opportunities. So I think just being willing to try and being willing to maybe fail, right? And oh, it didn't work right the first time. I'm going to try it again and not get frustrated. One of the things I tell everybody is when technology fails, don't blame yourself. That's another tenant of human factors. Don't blame the user. It's not the person's fault. It's a design flaw, right? How do we make it easier for people to use? And I think if people stop blaming themselves, they're more willing to try things. Right, right. Yeah, that's great advice. So do you see a time in the future where technology might potentially replace human social interaction? I want to emphatically say no, right? When we think about our technology, we always think about it as a way to augment human human interactions. We think about a robot that might support a caregiver, not replace a caregiver. And it's really important for all of us to remember that we're not trying to remove that human human connection, but we're trying to provide maybe other ways to get that human human connection or ways to augment it if you don't have ready access to human human cognition. Sorry, let me say that again. If you don't have ready access to human human connections, how might technology provide an augmentation for what you have available? Yeah, I think this is an important topic for when we think about any age group, not just older adults, because now with the introduction of AI, a lot of people, these large language models, a lot of even younger adults are replacing social interactions with these chats and AI. And I think that we're going to see that becoming a larger problem because I mean, it doesn't really replace human social interaction, right? It can temporarily be in the place of it, but I think cognitively, I don't think we're, you know, it's ever going to replace a human interaction. And if you think about how the technology might facilitate the human human interaction, so I started mentioning the Virtual Reality Project, where I'm using that as a medium to connect grandparents with grandchildren, right? The technology is just something that enables them to connect about something that is of interest to both of them. Yeah, that's interesting, you say, like I think about where we are now with social media, you know, versus like 20 years ago, it's, it has given a lot of people to connect with people, you know, it's augmented their connections, you know, so if it was a suffering from, you know, if you're somebody going through chemotherapy or something, you can find a group on there of people who could be anywhere in the world who you would not have normally met, and who you can get, you know, augment your support system and give you that connectedness. So I think that's a really important point to make. But another thing I wanted to add is how do we be careful that we're not kind of, we're reducing the burden from old adults, but we don't want to, for example, stop them being physically active. So if they can get up and go get that cup from over there, and that's the only activity they get all day, but then they can tell the robot to go get it for them, how are we going to make sure we don't kind of take down their level of physical activity, which could be a bad thing for them? Oh, absolutely. I think one way to think about it is how might we use technology to encourage physical activity? So you might have a social robot that says, okay, time to get up and move. We'll tell you where to get the cup. It's a music, let's dance, you know, go get the cup yourself. You are fully capable of getting that cup, go get it. But yeah, thinking about that, virtual reality for physical activity in games. So thinking of how to use the technology for that purpose is a great idea. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a really interesting conversation, and this is really exciting research, and just to think about, you know, what the future holds in terms of technology in our homes and how much it can augment, you know, people's lives and connectedness. That's really exciting. So where can our listeners learn more about your work? They can go to our website, which is very easy, hfaging.org. Hfaging.org. Hf for human factors. Yes, hfaging.org. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Neurologic, the CVL podcast. If you like what you're hearing, please follow and share with others. This podcast wouldn't be possible without the support of our team and the incredible work that goes on behind the scenes. We'd like to give special thanks to Patricia Moran, our marketing and operations producer and PanGoo, our audio video producer and editor. To learn more about the Centre for Virtual Longevity, just look up CVL.UTDALIS.edu. 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