by David Geer
Contact the author at geercom@windstream.net
A Robot’s Touch
He may not be the
lead singer from
Def Leppard, but he
still “wants to touch
you.” Cody — a
nurse assistant
caregiver robot
— wipes down
subject’s forearms
to clean them, or
touches them to
offer comfort in a
critical experiment
with a surprising
conclusion.
Close-up of Cody, the robot
researchers used to determine
whether people will accept a
robot’s touch.
The research is motivated by a pervasive nursing
shortage globally which — according to the researchers
Tiffany Chen, Chih-Hung King, Charles Kemp, and Andrea
Thomaz — is forecasted to increase in coming years. It
should be noted that due to advances in health care that
are increasing longevity, plus the retirement of the large
baby boomer population, there will be a larger patient
population requiring nursing care.
Because bathing patients takes up a significant amount
of a nurse’s work day, teaching a robot to perform the task
would free up a great deal of time for more critical services
to patients. This experiment gave the roboticists insight on
the type of touch people appreciate more when it comes
from a robot. If the robot is touching them to provide a
service (clean the forearm), the touch is welcomed. If the
touch is to transfer comfort, the subjects do not appreciate
it as much. This parallels research conducted on human
nurse and patient touch. The researchers also examined
whether a warning as to the purpose of the touch
beforehand was helpful.
10 SERVO 06.2011
The Research and Reasons
Georgia Tech researchers Tiffany L. Chen, Chih-Hung
King, Charles C. Kemp, and Andrea L. Thomaz produced
research based on the touch of the Cody robot on 56
research subjects at the world famous research university.
The purpose of the experimentation was to develop a
robotic nurse’s assistant that could perform duties such as
giving patients baths while in their beds. Goals of the
research included testing and comparing nurse and patient
interaction with robot and patient interaction, for efficacy
and application.
From the nurse and patient touch studies, two
particular types of touch resurfaced: instrumental touch to
perform a required medical task or treatment and affective
touch to comfort patients. With human nurses, patients are
more receptive to touch for instrumental purposes than for
the purpose of comfort, according to the several studies.
With the robotic nurse assistant, the researchers sought
to determine whether the patients had the same reaction
