Humanoid robots may actually help those with social disorders. Scientists discovered that robots and computer avatars may help those who suffer from schizophrenia or social phobia.
In this latest study, researchers developed a new system to enable a robot or computer avatar to interact with a patient. Initially, the avatar itself is like an alter ego and is created to look and move like the patient. This enhances the patient's feelings of attachment. Over time, though, the avatar is altered to become less similar. This, in turn, may help with social rehabilitation.
"It is very challenging to build an avatar that is intelligent enough to synchronize its motion with a human player, but our initial results are very exciting," said Mario di Bernardo of the U.K.'s University of Bristol, one of the researchers of the new study.
The new avatar relies on the theory of similarity, which suggests that it is easier to interact socially with someone who looks, behaves or moves like us. By starting out patients with an avatar that's a bit like a mirror of them, researchers can apply a treatment that slowly gets the patient used to interacting with someone who is more and more dissimilar to them.
The new avatar is actually part of a version of a mirror game in which two players try to copy each other's motions while playing with colored balls that can move horizontally on a string. In this case, the avatar had enough intelligence to synchronize and respond to the motion of the human player.
The findings could be huge when it comes to rehabilitating someone who suffers from social phobia or other social conditions. More specifically, it could help people get used to interacting with those who are different than they are. This, in turn, may help them eventually transition to interacting with people rather than a computer avatar.
Currently, researchers want to build on the current technology and set up multiple human-machine interaction for social rehabilitation. More specifically, they want to make groups of people and avatars interact with each in order to perform join tasks together.
The findings, part of the AlterEgo Project, will be published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
