Differing Care Giver and Care Receiver Perceptions of Robot Agency in an In-Home Socially Assistive Robot for Exercise Engagement

We present the results of an online, video-based experimental study investigating the impact of robot agency on perceptions of a socially assistive robot (SAR) shown supporting in-home care. We consider two key participant groups: care givers and care receivers. We did not find significant results regarding the impact of agency on overall participant perceptions of the SAR, but we did identify some differences in what these two participant groups might perceive as being best for themselves versus each other. Firstly, care givers perceived more potential benefit from the robot than care receivers did, challenging possible assumptions about who is set to gain most from deployment of these systems. Secondly, care receivers generally perceived the lower agency robot as being more beneficial for themselves, even as they ascribed the higher agency robot more potential to benefit care receivers.