Humanoid Robot-Application and Influence

Application of humanoid robots has been common in the field of healthcare and education. It has been recurrently used to improve social behavior and mollify distress level among children with autism, cancer and cerebral palsy. This article discusses the same from a human factors perspective. It shows how people of different age and gender have a different opinion towards the application and acceptance of humanoid robots. Additionally, this article highlights the influence of cerebral condition and social interaction on a user behavior and attitude towards humanoid robots. Our study performed a literature review and found that (a) children and elderly individuals prefer humanoid robots due to inactive social interaction, (b) The deterministic behavior of humanoid robots can be acknowledged to improve social behavior of autistic children, (c) Trust on humanoid robots is highly driven by its application and a user age, gender, and social life.

asked questions, played a quiz with the patients [7] [17], monitored and helped patients with medical assistance [4].
The effect of using robots in autism management has been highly effective and appreciated. Humanoid robots can be used to foster social and behavioral skills within autistic children [18], thus, can improve patient's autistic behavior [19]- [21].
Gaze is a crucial medium that enables social communication. It also affects acceptance, preference, and obedience among human beings [19]; However, excessive gaze might impose a threat, superiority, and anger [19]. Fifty-two University students participated in an experiment in which they had to engage in the "shell game" [19] with a humanoid robot. The game consisted of three different levels of difficulty. A mixed 3 X 3 design was employed to study the behavior of the subjects at Averted gaze, constant gaze and situational gaze [19] for the easy, medium and hard difficulty level of the game. Here, the independent variable was the three levels of gaze and game difficulty level -averted gaze in which the robot never looked at the participant, constant gaze during which the robot continuously seemed at the participant and situational gaze when the robot looked at the participant only when he or she gave a wrong answer. It was observed that with an increase in difficulty participant's trust towards the humanoid robot increased.
Use of humanoid robot had a significant influence on communication, social behavior and joint attention of autistic patients [22], [23] but did not influence any collaborative behavior among patients [10]; However, playing with human adult enhanced collaboration among patients [24].
A therapy session in a school playroom was set up to study the effect on joint attention. Students in this experiment used a humanoid robot, and the interaction was recorded. In this study, the robot directed students to perform physical activities such as touching head or look towards the window. The study measured the number of times the participants responded correctly to the robots. The experiment was run under two conditions, with prompting and without prompting. Improvement in joint attention initiation and response were noticed; however, the relevance and contribution of prompting were unclear.
Humanoid robots helped patients to learn more about autism management [8], [9]. The ability of the humanoid robot to evoke human-human interaction along with its impact on learning was analyzed in a study conducted by Costa in 2015. The experiment was classifieds into four sections: "familiarization, pre-test, practice, and post-test phase" [8]. In this experiment, the participants had to identify their different body parts as per asked and directed by the robot. In this study, it was observed that the participant's response increased in the "post-test phase" [8], [9] and; thus, the learning ability of the participant were increased after therapy using a robot. The study, thus, showed the effectiveness of a humanoid robot in the domain of child education and healthcare, Humanoid robots have also enhanced diabetes and diabetes management [7]. The benefactors of the humanoid robots in autism and diabetes management were mostly children [24], [25]

Education Humanoid Robot:
Use of computer and e-learning in the field of education have been performing well and have successfully increased the accessibility to education worldwide. However, the recent trend in education domain is towards the application of humanoid robots. Humanoid robots are now on the verge of becoming an essential component in the field of education as these robots can reason and analyze situations logically to support human learning and are also better than computer agent [28] and more engaging than the virtual agent [29]. Comparison between a projected robot, a collocated robot, and an on-screen agent has been a relevant concern in the domain of education and e-learning. To compare the impact of a computer agent, on-screen projection, onscreen projection of a robot and a physical robot on the social behavior such as engagement, disclosure, influence, memory, attitude, and others were measured to find that collocated or physical presence of robot-enhanced participant's involvement [28] with the subject. However, it did not affect social behavior [28]; Moreover, there was no significant difference found between onscreen robot, and a collocated robot [28]. Unlike other studies, this showed that learning ability was minimum using an arranged robot [28]. Humanoid robots have been known for teaching language [30] [17], hands-on engineering [31], nutrition [32], mathematics [33], general science [34] as well as helps students in learning spellings, storytelling [35] and participate in memory games. Robots have been performing the role of a teaching assistant [36], [37] [38] and games partner of children [39].
In most of the studies, humanoid robots were used along with a human teacher or a controller. The educational humanoid robots have been used for various sections of education and have addressed wide range of students such as preschool kids [33] [35] [39], primary school kids [17], [33], [35], [38], [40], [41] junior high school students [36] and undergraduate engineering students [42]. Students responded positively to the robots. Positive effect on learning [33] was observed along with higher participation [34]. Increase in a student's creativity [43], curiosity, knowledge, and recall rate [29], [44] were observed.

Socially assistive robot:
Social robots or socially assistive robots (SAR) are known as assistive robots, and their application is burgeoning especially among elderly people and hospitality industries. The social robot assists human beings in their daily life and replaces human activities at hospitality industries. At the domestic level, social robots have been doing well. Typically, older adults and autistic patients prefer and are benefiting from humanoid robots. These assistive robots act as a companion [45], [46] for both children and elderly individuals. Among children, social robots have been known for their ability to entertain [24] and play games [46], [47]. Importantly, autistic children prefer to spend more time with a robot [13] since robots are more predictive and less intimidating than human beings [48].
In this domain, most of the study emphasized the effect of age, gender and appearance of the robot on acceptance, social behavior of the user, and trust towards the humanoid robot. Children and elderly users have a diverse opinion about the appearance of a robot. Some preferred humanoid whereas, some liked machine-like appearance [11]. Since humanoid robots look like a human, they are more relatable and a better fit for companionship [11] [49]. According to a literature review, people relate male humanoid robots as more intelligent in decision making, whereas; female robots were perceived to be good at nursing and caring activities [11]. Humanoid robots can also evoke the feeling of care and enhance awareness of social behavior [47]. Consecutively, according to a survey and interview conducted by Broadbent in 2009 older people opted for robot staff to help them in daily life activities such as making a phone call, control appliances, remind medications and appointments [49]. In the study by Broadbent in 2009, several pictures of different types of robots were shown to the workers and residents of a nursing home.
Most individuals preferred a humanoid robot with all human-like physical features. Even the size of the robot impacted their perception. Elderly users opted for a medium sized robot with light, bright color; However, there was no influence of the robot's gender of the users [49]. The ability of a social robot to detect falls and serious medical condition of the user was highly appreciated; Moreover, assistive robots also play an important role in elderly care, they remotely observe the user and communicate with their care providers, thus, further reducing nurse workload [50].

Conclusion
The users have appreciated the role of humanoid robots in the field of healthcare and education. Contrastingly, people's attitude towards social or assistive robots varies significantly. Children and elderly users prefer robots and have less resistance towards the application of humanoid robots than that of middle-aged users. Trust and acceptance of humanoid robots were affected by its appearance, gaze, and functionality. According to a survey by Alaiad, people felt that using humanoid might be a threat to their privacy [54]. Humanoid robots were preferred more than general assistive robots [10], even people gave more attention to humanoid robots which are user-friendly [10]. Adult female users' trust decreased when the robots constantly gazed at them [18]; however, users with lower confidence had more trust towards the robot [18]. Humanoid robots were trusted with their functional knowledge such as weight, size, color, and other quantitative measures, but users did not trust on social and logical knowledge such good, bad, and other qualitative measures given by the robot [11]. People also believe that humanoid robots take undesirable actions intentionally and are more prone to make an error [20]. Unlike adult users, children were not concerned about the robot's utility. They enjoyed the company of humanoid robot [43] and treated them as a friend [42]. Children were willing and able to interact with the humanoid robot easily [55]. Old males had high concern about a robot's functionality [5] more than adolescent or females. Users want the humanoid robots to measure blood pressure, body temperature, connecting with a doctor remotely, reminding tasks, entertain, helping in the baby care management [54], lifting heavy, detect fall, control home appliance, housekeeping, making a phone call [45] and many other things.
The application of humanoid robots is crucial in the field of healthcare, education and as a social robot. In all these domains, most of the research is focused on the effect of using the humanoid robot, user acceptance and trust on the robot. It can be observed from the existing literature that the opinion of the people towards the use of humanoid robot varies from individual to individual. A user of different age, gender, and health condition perceive the usage and importance of humanoid robots differently. The appearance of the robot was found to be a crucial factor affecting user acceptance and trust; moreover, robot functionality and gaze also changed user preference towards humanoid robot application.
Although many studies have been conducted to analyze the usage and effectiveness of humanoid robots, we still need more