Survey on Animal Robot PARO in Malaysia: Perception and Acceptance

Researchers having same interest in field of human-robot interaction (HRI) have made large investments in robots for the purpose of interacting with human. However, there is still sparse evidence regarding response of person between animal robots and animals are different. Animal-robot PARO is classified as Class II medical device by Food and Drug Administration (FDA). PARO has a potential to be used as assistive device for treatment of mental illness specially dementia and depression. PARO is helpful through improving mood and help patients to be calm. The aim of this study is to explore the difference among evaluation of the animal-robot by the people in Malaysia. The constructed questions were focused to find out respondent’s background such as age and gender, direct effect interaction with PARO, and preferable duration of interact session. Subjective evaluation of animal-robot PARO was conducted during Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education (STEM) exhibitions that were held in Negeri Sembilan and Melaka. Statistical analysis was conducted with total of 120 respondent using dataset. 95.8% responds agree that PARO able to make them calm. Both adult and children dislike PARO with the percentage less than 5%. Half an hour was chosen as the best time so spend with PARO. In future, PARO will be used as a device in rehabilitation center to assists in depression therapy.