Medical Field Exercise With a Social Telepresence Robot

摘要

This article reports observations from a fieldstudy in which medical responders used a social telepresencerobot to communicate with participants playing therole of a trapped victim in two search and rescue exercises.The interaction between the robot, victims, and responderssuggests the coexistence of two distinct social identitiesfor the robot. One which is a pure conduit for theremote medic, and another in which the robot is treatedas an independent social actor. Participants acting as victimsdemonstrated fluidity in interacting with each identity.The social identify of a robot has important implicationsfor the development of future telepresence systems,particularly in the healthcare domain. Since victims in theexercises gave attention to both the robot and the remotemedic, it is possible that the robot’s social actor role maydivert attention from the remotely connected individual.The work provides a starting point for investigation of roleconflict between a remote medical professional and therobot they are using to assist a patient.