SCC-IRG Track 1 Reducing Loneliness for Long Term Care Older Adults through Collaborative Augmented Reality

该项目旨在通过新的增强现实(AR)技术减少居住在长期护理(LTC)社区的老年人的孤独感。孤独是一种严重的疾病，与心脏病、抑郁、自杀、精神和身体衰退以及生活质量和死亡质量的下降有关。在美国，五分之二的老年人表示感到孤独。更令人担忧的是，四分之三的LTC老年人经历了孤独。新冠肺炎疫情及其伴随的安全协议加剧了整个LTC的孤独感。该项目将发现增强现实如何通过将LTC老年人与居住在其他地方的家庭成员联系起来来减少他们的孤独感。该项目将让老年人和家人看到彼此的三维现实图像，一起吃饭，并在各种活动中互动，比如打牌。该项目的研究人员是工程学、计算机科学、老年学、护理、医学和社会健康科学方面的专家。在AR技术的设计和测试中，该团队将与老年人和家庭成员合作，将AR与2D互动通信技术进行比较，如Zoom或Facetime。对这种增强AR技术在老年人、家庭和LTC工作人员中的可行性和可接受性的初步了解将指导未来针对孤独的研究，最终提高老年人的生活质量。该项目的社区重点将是居住在田纳西州中部LTC社区的老年人，他们有可能在全国范围内推广该解决方案。该项目将从根本上推进协作增强现实的科学和技术方法，以增强社会存在和社会联系，创造现实和社会合适的互动。在这一研究过程中，它将在技术和社会科学方面做出几个基本贡献：1)创建一个新的基于多目标优化的框架，该框架最大限度地减少化身的手的位置错误，同时保持其相对于其所代表的人类的非语言行为；这种能力将允许共享活动(例如，一起喝茶)和适当的社会非语言行为(例如，凝视和姿势)，这是交流的关键组成部分；2)通过新颖的运动映射和确保自然行走模式的优化，创建用户在其虚拟化身上的动作的新方法，以生成尊重用户与其虚拟化身环境的差异(例如，房间几何形状的差异)的自然的、社交适当的运动；3)更好地理解对于具有不同认知障碍程度的老年人及其家庭成员使用各种协作AR活动和环境的可行性、可接受性和社交存在；4)基于认知损害的程度，更好地理解协作AR对孤独感的影响；5)更好地了解这项技术在LTC和家庭家庭中的后勤和部署，以提高可扩展性；以及6)制定活动设计指南，以减少老年人的孤独感。这项研究将通过使用关键利益相关者(例如，老年人、活动总监、LTC管理层)的参与式设计进行，并使用双臂实验设计进行评估，将协作AR与当前最先进的2D互动通信技术进行比较。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project seeks to reduce loneliness in older adults who reside in long term care (LTC) communities through new augmented reality (AR) technology. Loneliness is a serious condition that is related to increases in heart disease, depression, suicide, mental and physical decline, and reduced quality of life and death. Two out of five older adults in the U.S. report being lonely. Even more alarming, three out of four LTC older adults experience loneliness. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its accompanying safety protocols, has intensified loneliness across the LTCs. The project will discover how augmented reality can reduce loneliness in LTC older adults by linking them with family members who reside elsewhere. This project will allow older adults and family members to see each other’s 3-dimensional realistic images, eat meals together, and interact with one another in various activities, such as playing cards. Investigators of this project are experts in engineering, computer science, gerontology, nursing, medicine and social health science. Working with older adults and family members in the design and testing of the AR technology, the team will compare AR to 2D interactive communication technologies, such as Zoom or Facetime. Initial understanding of the feasibility and acceptability of this enhanced AR technology among older adults, families and LTC staff will guide future studies targeting loneliness, ultimately improving quality of life for older adults. The community focus for this project will be older adults residing in LTC communities in Middle Tennessee with the potential to scaling the solution across the nation.The project will fundamentally advance the scientific and the technological methodologies of collaborative Augmented Reality to enhance social presence and thus social connectedness, to create realistic and socially appropriate interactions. It will make several fundamental contributions in both technology and social science during the course of this research: 1) create a novel multi-objective optimization based framework that minimizes positional errors of the hand of the avatar while preserving its nonverbal behavior with respect to the human it represents; such an ability will allow shared activities (e.g., drinking tea together) with appropriate social nonverbal behavior (e.g., gaze and postures), a critical component of communication; 2) create a new methodology of a user’s motions onto its avatar to generate naturalistic, socially appropriate motion that respects dissimilarities between the user’s and its avatar’s environments (e.g., differences in room geometries) through novel motion mapping and optimization that ensures natural walking patterns; 3) develop a greater understanding of the feasibility, acceptability and social presence in the use of varying collaborative AR activities and environments for older adults with different levels of cognitive impairment and their family members; 4) develop a greater understanding of the impact of collaborative AR on loneliness based on level of cognitive impairment; 5) gain a greater understanding of the logistics and deployment of this technology in LTCs and family homes to inform scalability; and 6) create activity design guidelines for reduction of loneliness in older adults. The research will be conducted through participatory design using key stakeholders (e.g., older adults, activity directors, LTC management) and evaluated using a two-arm experimental design comparing collaborative AR to current state-of-the-art 2D interactive communication technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.