COLLOQUIUM Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of South Carolina Jenay M. Beer School of Psychology Georgia Institute of Technology Date: March 20, 2013 Time: 1430-1530 (2:30pm-3:30pm) Place: Swearingen 2A31 Abstract Many older adults wish to remain in their own homes as they age. However, challenges threaten an older adult’s ability to age in place, and even healthy independently living older adults experience challenges in maintaining their home. Challenges with aging in place can be compensated through technology, such as home assistive robots. However, for home robots to be adopted by older adult users they must be designed to meet older adults’ needs for assistance and the older users must be amenable to robot assistance for those needs. In this talk, I will discuss a range of projects (both quantitative and qualitative in nature) assessing older adults’ social interpretation, attitudes, and acceptance of assistive robotics. Study findings suggest that older adults’ assistance preferences discriminated between tasks, and the data suggest insights as to why older adults hold such preferences. The talk will detail a multidisciplinary approach to studying human-robot interaction (HRI) and how findings from user studies can apply to preliminary design recommendations for future assistive robots to support aging in place. Jenay M. Beer is a 6th-year Ph.D. student in Engineering Psychology at Georgia Tech. She is a member of the Human Factors and Aging Laboratory, co-directed by Wendy A. Rogers and Arthur D. Fisk. Her research intersects the fields of Human Robot Interaction (HRI) and Psychology. Specifically, she studies home-based robots designed to assist older adults to maintain their independence and age in place. She has studied a variety of robotic systems and topics such as emotion expression of agents, user acceptance of robots, healthcare robotics, and the role of robot autonomy in HRI. Jenay received a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Dayton, Ohio and an M.S. in Engineering Psychology from Georgia Tech.