Age-Related Differences in the Perception of Eye-Gaze from a Social Robot

2026-03-09

AI Summary

This study investigates how aging affects the perception of referential gaze cues from social robots and its implications for human-robot interaction. Through behavioral experiments employing a social robot platform, eye-tracking measures, and reaction times, the research systematically compares sensitivity to robotic gaze direction between older and younger adults. Findings reveal that older adults exhibit significantly reduced accuracy in interpreting these nonverbal cues compared to their younger counterparts, underscoring age as a critical factor in nonverbal human-robot communication. These results provide empirical support for designing adaptive social robots tailored to older users, highlighting the necessity of age-sensitive optimization of nonverbal interaction strategies to enhance social perception and engagement in human-robot interactions.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in social robots assisting older adults during daily life tasks. In this context, non-verbal cues such as deictic gaze are important in natural communication in human-robot interaction. However, the sensibility to deictic-gaze declines naturally with age and results in a reduction in social perception. Therefore, this work explores the benefits of deictic gaze from social robots assisting older adults during daily life tasks, and how age-related differences may influence their social perception in contrast to younger populations. This may help on the design of adaptive age-related non-verbal cues in the Human-Robot Interaction context.

Problem

• age-related differences
• deictic gaze
• social perception
• human-robot interaction
• older adults

Innovation

• deictic gaze
• age-related differences
• social perception
• human-robot interaction
• adaptive non-verbal cues