The Game Changer: The Role of Persuasive Socially Assistive Robots in the Sustained Engagement and Motivation of Older Adults in a Cognitive Activity

Abstract Socially assistive robots have demonstrated their ability to aid vulnerable groups such as older adults with cognitive activities. However, maintaining long-term engagement and motivation remains challenging in human-robot interaction, particularly given older adults’ diverse and evolving needs. We present a human-robot interaction study that uniquely investigates the relationship between strategy-based persuasive behaviors, a robot’s social presence, and their influence on the sustained engagement and motivation of older adults during a cognitive activity. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted a month-long longitudinal user study with residents of a long-term care home. We compared two robot behavior conditions while facilitating the Simon electronic game: one condition displayed multimodal persuasive behaviors, while the other used only instructional speech. Our findings revealed that both the persuasive and instructional robot behavior conditions maintained engagement and increased motivation over sustained interactions. However, older adults responded more positively to the persuasive robot; they also spent a longer time on the game in the persuasive condition. As interactions continued, the social presence of the instructional robot declined. These results suggest that the persuasive robot interaction style may be more effective at engaging and emotionally stimulating for older adults. Overall, a hybrid approach combining both persuasive and instructional robot behaviors could be effective at maintaining engagement and motivation over sustained interactions among older adults during cognitive activities. In this paper, we also discuss game design considerations when developing robot assistive behaviors at different stages of a robot-assisted cognitive game, including factors that can influence the sustained engagement and motivation of older adults.