Study Information
Project title: Exploring interest to engage with Social Robots
Student Investigator: Hamed Vaezi
Principal Investigator: Prof. Moojan Ghafurian
You are invited to participate in a study about the interest in using Social Robots. We are conducting a study for participants to interact with Social Robots and complete three simple tasks in three sessions. Before you agree to take part in this study, it is important for you to understand what you will be asked to do. Please read the information below and make a decision about whether or not you wish to participate. Feel free to ask us any questions about the study, or any part of this form that may not be clear.
Research Purpose
In this study, we aim to understand your opinion about Social Robots when they are assisting you in doing three simple tasks(Lego building). The study's main goal is to inform design of social robots that can successfully assist individuals in a range of different activities.
Procedure
After signing the consent form, you will answer a few questions about yourself (age, gender, personality, etc.) and we will complete three in-person sessions where you will interact with the
Social Robots.
In these sessions, you will be seated in front of social robots, and you will complete a simple task, i.e., a lego building task, with the Social Robots each session. The robots will provide verbal instructions for each step of the Lego building task, and you will be asked to follow their guidance to complete the task. Please note that we will record you while you are doing the tasks. This recording includes eye tracking, heart rate monitoring, and facial expression analysis using Noldus FaceReader software. These recordings will only be used by the researchers involved in this study and will be removed after the study.
Duration/Time
The whole process will take three sessions and approximately 20 minutes each.
Participation and Withdrawal
To participate in this study, you should be 18 years old or more, and you should not have been diagnosed with any sort of hearing loss as you need to listen to and understand Social Robots (You should be able to hear the robots speaking with a volume that is close to the average volume of humans). You also should be able to see properly (with or without glasses) for interacting with robots.
This study is expected to take place in three days and it will be approximately 20 minutes in length each day. Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you can stop at any point and ask us to delete the data. If you do decide to continue with the study, you will be asked to whether you agree to participate in the study. Even if you do consent, you can withdraw from the study at any time before or during the study, and we will remove all your information and data. Your data is linked to a participant ID throughout the study to allow data to be connected across sessions. You may withdraw your consent and request deletion of your data at any time up to two weeks following your final session (Session 3). After this point, data will be de-identified, and it will no longer be possible to locate and remove your individual records.
Confidentiality
You will not be identified individually in any written reports of this research. The information collected from the interviews will be assigned a random ID and not associated with you.
The data collected by the FaceReader software (metadata such as facial expressions that cannot be used to identify an individual) will be stored using AES256 encryption in Microsoft Azure’s “blob storage” that located exclusively in the European Economic Area. The data is only accessible to researchers of this study and will not be used for training or sharing with a third-party.
We will not keep a link between your name and your data. You may withdraw your consent and your data anytime until the study concludes. The data will be securely stored on the investigators’ computers for analysis, all of which are password-protected, as well as a password-protected lab server. Data may be used for other research projects limited to the lab and will only be used by current investigators. De-identified data related to your participation (including experience with robots, questionnaire answers, and descriptions and transcription segments of the audio/video instead of the actual audio/video.) may be submitted to an online repository/and or journal. Data will be shared without any names or other identifying information. Data will be shared to verify results and avoid duplicating research. Though the data is posted for the purpose listed, other individuals may access these data by accessing the open access repository. Once it is added, it cannot be removed as we will not know which data belongs to you. Anonymized data will be stored by the research team for at least 7 years.
With your permission (as indicated by the optional consent checkbox below), your data may also be used in future research by this lab related to similar or related topics in social robotics and human-robot interaction.
Will I receive anything for participating?
You will receive $5 per session you participate. You will also receive a gift card of $15 + $15 bonus after completing all three sessions, which makes it a $30 gift card for Tim Hortons at the end. The amount received is taxable. It is your responsibility to report this amount for income tax purposes. You will receive the gift card at the end of the session.
What are the risks associated with participating?
The experiment will be held in a safe lab space (EITA lab). Participants may feel mild discomfort during interactions with robots that exhibit certain behaviours, or mild frustration upon learning of the partial disclosure at the end of the study. However, the risks involved in participation are not expected to be greater than what you may experience in your day-to-day life
Contact Information
If you have any questions or concerns or would like to speak to the research team for any reason, please contact: hvaezish@uwaterloo.ca