Music plus empathetic speech makes robot companions feel more caring

Johan Hoorn of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Ivy Huang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong compared on-screen empathetic robots that used speech alone with ones that combined speech and music, over three sessions with Cantonese speakers. Adding music significantly raised how empathetic the robot seemed and kept it feeling humanlike in later sessions. The researchers caution that novelty may fade and recommend robots personalise their responses over time. Published in ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, the work targets loneliness, especially among older adults.

Source: Tech Xplore (PolyU)