Evaluation of exercise motivation competence of a humanoid robot: a case study in Brazil Regular physical exercise and decreasing sedentary behavior are essential for the health of adults 1. However, even with well known benefits, in 2016, it was determined that the prevalence of insufficient physical activity in the world population was 27.5% 2. In this paper, we utilized a humanoid robot as an instructor for physical exercise in a stationary bicycle. By applying questionnaires as well as recording sensor data, we measured the impact of the robot in the motivation and other psychological aspects, as well as the performance in 14 participants. The participants were males and females with an average age of 23.5 xc2xb1 2.38 years, and were equally and randomly divided in two groups: one with the robot instructor, and a control group. They performed two exercise sessions, after which they answered the questionnaires. The results were not statistically significant (p u003c 0.05), but show a trend of the robot having a positive impact in the group that interacted with it, regarding their motivation, pleasure and enjoyment. The interaction also seems to have positively influenced the mood of the participants. The perceived effort, as well as average speed and cycled distance did not seem to have been influenced by the robot. Future studies, with a larger sample size, are needed to confirm the trend shown here.

An adaptive robot teacher boosts a human partnerxe2x80x99s learning performance in joint action One important challenge for roboticists in the coming years will be to design robots to teach humans new skills or to lead humans in activities which require sustained motivation (e.g. physiotherapy, skills training). In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that if a robot teacher invests physical effort in adapting to a human learner in a context in which the robot is teaching the human a new skill, this would facilitate the humanxe2x80x99s learning. We also hypothesized that the robot teacherxe2x80x99s effortful adaptation would lead the human learner to experience greater rapport in the interaction. To this end, we devised a scenario in which the iCub and a human participant alternated in teaching each other new skills. In the high effort condition, the iCub slowed down his movements when repeating a demonstration for the human learner, whereas in the low effort condition he sped the movements up when repeating the demonstration. The results indicate that participants indeed learned more effectively when the iCub adapted its demonstrations, and that the iCubxe2x80x99s apparently effortful adaptation led participants to experience him as more helpful.