Navigation and Cognitive Load in Telepresence Robots

Telepresence robots have become integrated into educational, medical, and workplace settings as the capabilities of remote technologies progress. Considering the recent pandemic, the deployment of telepresence robots to digitally represent individuals in remote environments has become more important. The goal of this study was to investigate if implementing autonomous features, such as navigation, in telepresence robots could reduce cognitive load and facilitate operation for the user. While many studies involving telepresence robots examine navigation, there has been little research on how different types of navigation affect cognitive load and user experience. The present study measured differences between autonomous and manual navigation on cognitive load, spatial awareness, presence, and user experience during a scavenger hunt task using a telepresence robot. We found that in the autonomous navigation condition, participants moved around their environment more efficiently, performed better in a learning and memory task, and had lower cognitive load assessments than those in the manual navigation condition. These results suggest that incorporating autonomous navigation functions into telepresence robots may lessen cognitive load, enabling individuals to attend to more stimuli in their environment and improve learning in educational settings.