Monday, 27 March, 2023
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Robots takes over as mental wellbeing coach

Scientists have found that robots could prove useful as mental wellbeing coaches for employees in offices. But the employees’ perceptions of how effective the robots are depends a lot on how they look. Researchers from the University of Cambridge conducted an ‘in-the-wild’ study in a tech consultancy firm where they used two different robots as wellbeing coaches. As many as 26 employees at the firm participated in the weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks.

Interestingly, the participants who worked with a toy-like robot felt more of a connection with their coach than those who worked with a humanoid robot. Both robots had exact same voices, similar facial expressions and scripts for these sessions. But the vastly different physical appearances of the two robots changed the way.