Experiment Methodology Report

Hypothesis
The hypothesis for our experiment is as follows: Nao says some motivational
phrases and they encourage patient and make therapeutic physical trainings more
patient engaging.

Method
The experiment will be held with students in the university, as we need to use
NAO robot. Firstly, one of the researcher will make some notes about participant
(Name, age, gender, any knowledge/experience about NAO, Kinect, etc.). Then
he/she will go through therapeutic physical training with NAO and experience
NAOs motivational phrases. Researcher in order not to miss some body language,
facial expression that will be evaluated at the end, will record the therapy.

Experimental Setup (diagram of the room, equipment setup)

The experiment will take place in a robotics laboratory. The NAO robot and
Kinect will be placed on the table of medium height that is placed on the top of the
room. NAO will stand right behind the Kinect so that camera qualitatively captures
patients skeleton. The robot will always in a standing position so that can be
clearly seen by patient. The robots movement involves only moving its arms. Two
adjustable chairs will be placed on opposite sides of another table that is on some
distance right in front of Kinect. At the same table, the 3rd researcher firstly will
ask some questions about patient, then, during the therapy, he will record the
session trying not to attract patient, and at the end of the therapy, he will conduct
some post-interview with patient. One more table will stand on the parallel left side
of patients table. There the first researcher will keep track of the Kinect systems
work and the second will keep track of Nao systems work. Experimental setup
and room layout are illustrated below.

Scenario
Participant, who is a potential patient, enters the room and is instructed to sit
near the third researcher. The researcher then asks some questions about patient. In
the end, he asks for permission to record the video and then says that the therapy
session will start now and patient needs to follow NAOs instructions. Researcher
presses NAOs touch sensor (chooses the exercise) to initiate the therapy and
gets prepared to record the session if permitted. NAO greets patient, asks warm up
question, provides instruction where and how to sit and starts the therapy. During
the therapy, NAO gets information about how well patient is doing the exercise
from Kinect and says some motivational phrases. By the end of the therapy, NAO
says statistical feedback to patient and says goodbye. Next, patient is asked some
questions about the session and then patient leaves.

Procedure
For our future experiment in terms of procedure, it is going to be as follows: we
will call 10-20 participants to test our system. Of course, it will be better if we will
have more participants but it depends on some circumstances, including lab
availability. We hope we will test our system on 15 people. Every participant will
be asked to do the same steps as others. Firstly, we will ask to answer some general

questions. Then to follow the NAOs instructions and do an exercise. When the
therapy will be finished we will make post-interview in which he/she will be asked
about their comments/opinion about the system. All this steps will be repeated for
all participants.

Anticipated participants
For our future experiment, we are going to test as more participants as possible.
For the first time we will take 10 participants and all of them will be students and
from different fields of study. We will try to divide them on those who are familiar
with such hi-tech and not. Also in our experiment, the more participants we will
have the more precise and accurate data and feedback we will get.

Manipulation
As for the manipulation of our future experiment, we will think that the interaction
of NAO robot will definitely influence on the successful completion of the therapy.