RoboDogs Just As Good Company As Real Dogs
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Thursday, 28 of February , 2008 at 4:44 am
They may not be as warm or fuzzy or drooly, but a study conducted in nursing homes by researchers from St. Louis University has shown that a Sony AIBO is (in this case, at least) as equally effective as a real mutt named Sparky when it comes to alleviating loneliness. A group of 38 patients got weekly visits from either Sparky or the AIBO, and after 7 weeks, “both dogs provided virtually equal comfort.”
“The most surprising thing is they worked almost equally well in terms of alleviating loneliness and causing residents to form attachments,” said Dr. William Banks, a professor of geriatric medicine who worked on the study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. “It really improves loneliness considerably… Loneliness is common in nursing homes. Robots may be very useful for people who cannot for whatever reason have access to a living dog.”
All things considered, AIBO is actually a rather primitive robotic pet… Pleo, for example, offers tactile skin, much more in the way of movement, and a real artificial personality. The key point when it comes to real versus artificial pets is that real pets take a lot of work. If you have a real pet, you know what I’m talking about. So, if there’s no significant difference between the benefits real and artificial pets in a nursing home context, an artificial pet would be much easier to deal with on a day to day basis for most people. Hooray, Pleos for everyone!
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Category: Medical, Research, Toys
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