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

Lucas Morillo-Mendez; Martien G. S. Schrooten; Oscar Martinez Mozos

cs.ROMar 9, 2026

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

Authors: Lucas Morillo-Mendez, Martien G. S. Schrooten, Oscar Martinez Mozos

Organizations: Örebro University, Fakultetsgatan 1, 702 81, Örebro, Sweden

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.

Figures & tables

Figure 2: Structure of the experiment for a participant i . The letter ‘B’ represents the bread, while ‘In. x’ represents ingredient in position x. ‘Q’ refers to the questionnaire.

	Age (years)		Gender			Comfort w/ computers			Had seen Pepper before
Group	Mean	SD	M	F	Other	No	Not Sure	Yes	No	Not Sure	Yes
OA	69.3	3.8	76	74	0	1	7	142	108	26	16
A	53.4	12.1	45	80	1	1	11	113	84	24	18

Table 1: Sample description

Figure 3: A) Mean Reaction Time (left) and Task Completion Time (right) for each group. B) Violin plots with means in red of the proportional differences between robots. Error bars show 95% bootstrapped confidence intervals.

	RT (ms)	TCT (s)	% Facilitation (RT)	% Facilitation (TCT)
Age	$p<$ 0.001 (***)	$p<$ 0.001 (***)	$p$ =0.31	$p$ =0.66
$M^{A}$	$2131\pm 575$	$53.5\pm 9.8$	$0.29\pm 0.36$	$0.12\pm 0.2$
$M^{OA}$	$2590\pm 808$	$61\pm 12.5$	$0.22\pm 0.35$	$0.11\pm 0.2$
Robot	$p<$ 0.001 (***)	$p<$ 0.001 (***)	-	-
$M^{SR}$	$2585\pm 721$	$61.5\pm 12.3$
$M^{MR}$	$2176\pm 716$	$56.3\pm 11.1$

Table 2: Main and interaction effects on the times

Human-Robot Interaction

Human-robot interaction studies how people and robots communicate, coordinate, and safely work or live together.

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Perception of Social Robots as Communication Partners in Healthcare for Older Adults

Hana Yamamoto, Carlotta Julia Mayer, Charlotte Raithel, Theresa Buchner+4

Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Adenauerring 12, Karlsruhe, 76131, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. · Department of Robotics, Tohoku University, Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, 980-8579, Miyagi, Japan. · Institute of Medical Psychology, Heidelberg University, Bergheimer Str. 20, Heidelberg, 69115, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.+2

Healthcare Robotics Robotics Assistive Robotics Human-Robot Interaction

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Addressing the global caregiver shortage through socially assistive robots necessitates a deep understanding of their psychological and physiological impacts on older adults during human-robot interaction (HRI). This study addresses whether social robots can serve as effective interaction partners compared to humans, and if "positive prompts" can similarly enhance these interactions. We conducted a comparative study with 35 participants (aged 70+). Our multi-modal analysis, integrating facial expression data, heart rate variability, and subjective questionnaires, revealed no significant differences in overall stress levels between human and robot interactions. Facial expression analysis confirmed that the robot was accepted as a valid interaction partner, while physiological data showed slightly lower heart rates during robot interactions, suggesting a more relaxed state compared to human-led sessions. These findings indicate that social robots can engage older adults without inducing psychological strain and are capable of alleviating caregiver burden by performing structured tasks, such as health-sensing surveys. Future work should address the identified "appearance-content mismatch" in robot design to facilitate even more natural and effective interactions.

Abstract

Human-Robot Interaction

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