Twin-Robot Dialogue System with Robustness against Speech Recognition Failure in Human-Robot Dialogue with Elderly People

• Published in: Applied sciences 2020-02, Vol.10 (4), p.1522
• Main Authors: Iio, Takamasa, Yoshikawa, Yuichiro, Chiba, Mariko, Asami, Taichi, Isoda, Yoshinori, Ishiguro, Hiroshi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Caregivers; Dementia; dialogue system; elderly people; Geriatrics; Nursing care; Nursing homes; Older people; Robots; Social isolation; Speech; Speech recognition; two robots; Verbal communication; Voice recognition
• ISSN: 2076-3417; 2076-3417
• DOI: 10.3390/app10041522

As agents, social robots are expected to increase opportunities for dialogue with the elderly. However, it is difficult to sustain a dialogue with an elderly user because speech recognition frequently fails during the dialogue. Here, to overcome this problem, regardless of speech recognition failure, we developed a question–answer–response dialogue model. In this model, a robot took initiative in the dialogue by asking the user various questions. Moreover, to improve user experience during dialogue, we extended the model such that two robots could participate in the dialogue. Implementing these features, we conducted a field trial in a nursing home to evaluate the twin-robot dialogue system. The average word error rate of speech recognition was 0.778. Despite the frequently high number of errors, participants talked for 14 min in a dialogue with two robots and felt slightly strange during the dialogue. Although we found no significant difference between a dialogue with one robot and that with two robots, the effect size of the difference in the dialogue time with one robot and that with two robots was medium (Cohen’s d = −0.519). The results suggested that the presence of two robots might likely encourage elderly people to sustain the talk. Our results will contribute to the design of social robots to engage in dialogues with the elderly.