Shakespeare and Robots: Participatory Performance Art for Older Adults

Theatre arts, social work, and engineering researchers investigated the therapeutic benefits of an interdisciplinary multi-modal intervention with older adults using a social robotic platform in an independent living facility. This pilot study incorporated Shakespearean text and the social robot, NAO, performing and concurrently encouraging the older adult to perform as a function of a participatory performance arts model. The findings of this human-robot study include a reduction in depression and an increase in social engagement with the robot in the older adults who participated in the intervention.