Information support robots (ISRs) have the potential to assist older people living alone to have an independent life. However, the effects of ISRs on the daily activity, especially the sleep patterns, of older people have not been clarified; moreover, it is unclear whether the effects of ISRs depend on the levels of cognitive function. To investigate these effects, we introduced an ISR into the actual living environment and then quantified induced changes according to the levels of cognitive function. Older people who maintained their cognitive function demonstrated the following behavioral changes after using the ISR: faster wake-up times, reduced sleep duration, and increased amount of activity in the daytime (p < 0.05, r = 0.77; p < 0.05, r = 0.89, and p < 0.1, r = 0.70, respectively). The results suggest that the ISR is beneficial in supporting the independence of older people living alone since living alone is associated with disturbed sleep patterns and low physical activity. The impact of the ISR on daily activity was more remarkable in the subjects with high cognitive function than in those with low cognitive function. These findings suggest that cognitive function is useful information in the ISR adaptation process. The present study has more solid external validity than that of a controlled environment study since it was done in a personal residential space.

To realize a society in which older adults can live independently in their homes and familiar environments for as long as possible, their lives can be supported by providing appropriate technology. In this case, a new intervention for older people using socially assistive robots (SARs) is proposed; however, previous research has demonstrated that individual differences exist in the use and response to SAR interventions, and it has also been reported that SARs are not used by users in some cases. Therefore, in this study, we developed a self-disclosure function to promote continuous interaction with robots, using a Japanese corpus and self-disclosure items. In this study, we defined the specific requirements and functions of self-disclosure in SARs and developed ten non-arbitrary speech scripts from the field of social psychology using a Japanese corpus and self-disclosure items. To evaluate the effect of self-disclosure in SARs, an SAR was introduced to each household for 20 days, with the consent of seven community-dwelling older adults. Based on the recorded voice interaction data, we analyzed how the number, total time, and quality of verbal interactions changed with the SAR’s self-disclosure. Furthermore, we conducted group interviews with the participants and received positive comments regarding the robot’s self-disclosure. Some participants considered the specific personality of the SAR by accumulating its behavioral characteristics. As a consequence, these results indicate that the robot’s self-disclosure feature is effective in significantly increasing the quantity and quality of verbal interactions with older adults.

Current medical science has not yet found a cure for dementia. The most important measures to combat dementia are to detect the tendency toward cognitive decline as early as possible and to intervene at an early stage. For this reason, screening for dementia based on language ability has attracted much attention in recent years. However, in most of the previous studies, the cohort of people with dementia has been smaller than the control cohort. In this paper, we use a pre-trained Japanese language model for text analysis and evaluate the effectiveness of text augmentation on a dataset consisting of Japanese-speaking healthy older adults and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We also examined what tasks contributed to the results. This experimental setting can also be used to detect other diseases that may affect the language areas of the brain outside of the hospital.

In this study, the effect of social assistive robots (SARs) on the continuity of health management activities was verified through the measurement of daily grip strength. We proposed and developed an intervention system for grip strength measurement and installed it in a SAR. Then, 23 older adults used the system at home with and without a SAR. Each setup was applied for three weeks and the rates at which the participants forgot their daily grip strength measurements were compared at the end of the period. The rates at which the daily measurements were forgotten decreased significantly when a SAR was used. In particular, 9 participants were able to decrease their rate of forgotten measurements after they used a SAR. Thus, the SAR enabled the participants to regularly perform grip strength measurement activities. These findings indicate that appropriate intervention measures using SARs are effective in promoting the continuity of daily healthcare activities of older adults living at home.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using a mobile socially assistive robot (SAR) that incorporates approach behaviour (APB) for seniors. The participants were 15 residents in a nursing home. The effectiveness of dialogue with participants was compared for two types of SARs: stationary and mobile. Interactions were also examined to determine the factors that led to the success or failure of the dialogue based on the trajectory of the mobile SARs and observations of the participants’ behaviour with the mobile SARs. The results showed that nine of 15 participants (60 %) engaged in dialogue with mobile SARs, which was twice as effective as stationary SARs. Conversely, some participants could not engage in dialogue when using a mobile SAR. In addition, these participants’ The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores were low. These participants’ successful dialogues were influenced by the angle at which the mobile SAR approached the participant and the length of time the mobile SAR and the participant were face to face. In this study, it was shown that the introduction of mobile SARs in a nursing home could facilitate communication between SARs and residents and further contribute to the quality of life of residents.

While tolerance is recognised as important, especially to diverse societies, understanding tolerance poses complexities, both theoretically and in practical application. Tolerance is relevant in different social contexts, yet these pose distinct challenges to measurement. Thus, understanding the measurement of tolerance is important. This study provides a systematic review of tolerance scales, with the procedure based on the PRISMA statement. The initial collection of over 1600 papers through the systematic review process yielded a set of 11 papers. These papers trace the development of tolerance scales to encompass distinct social contexts over time, including political, cultural, ethnic and racial, racial and religious, gender and sexual, and social. Correspondingly, the approaches reflect particular challenges relevant to these domains for understanding and measuring tolerance. In contrast, some recent contributions aim to develop broader, less context-specific means to assess tolerance. Notwithstanding the breadth of articles included, this systematic review yielded articles that covered only selected Western-centric geographies: this indicates the opportunity for further research to access and integrate non-English-language articles to broaden the geographical and cultural perspectives on tolerance.