• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.883-892
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• 2018

Recently, as interest in social robots to support physical convenience and emotional sympathy has increased, and social internet has developed, a social robot has evolved as various services simply beyond robot function. Therefore, to develop a social robot service effectively, it is required to study the functional application and methods of interaction between user and social robot service. The purpose of this study is to classify social robot services and to suggest the types of elements that need to be considered in service development. To do this, we conducted in-depth case studies and analysis based on the theoretical definitions and characteristics of social robots. Then, based on the sympathy and functions, we classified social robot services into 1) emotional support type, 2) companion type, 3) guide type, and 4) life support type. In addition, in this study, we derive the considerable factors according to the classified types for the development of effective social robot services. This study will contribute to the understanding and development of various services using a social robot.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.1796-1799
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• 2015

최근 소셜 로봇은 단순히 인간의 사회적 행동을 모방하는 것에 그치지 않고 인간에게 유용한 서비스를 제공하는 데에 초점을 맞추고 있다. 소셜 로봇이 효과적으로 서비스를 제공하기 위해서는 자발적으로 행동을 실행할 수 있도록 지원하는 메커니즘이 필요하나 이에 대한 연구는 미비하다. 본 연구는 소셜 로봇과 상호작용하는 사람에게 효과적인 서비스를 제공하기 위하여 소셜 로봇의 행동을 결정하는 동기 시스템을 제안하고 구현하였다. 제안된 행동 결정 동기 시스템은 장노년층의 스마트폰 활용 도우미 서비스를 제공하는 소셜 로봇에 적용하였으며, 이를 위해 스마트폰 기반의 소셜 로봇을 설계하고 구현하였다.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.349-355
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• 2020

Social robots are attracting attention as an alternative to social problems in modern society, and the need for modularization has been raised to efficiently manage various robots. The study aims to reestablish the concept of 'Personal social service robot' and propose a new modularization method to apply it. For this study, literature research about the definition of social robots and service robots is conducted. In addition, we investigated the modularization of robots and analyzed the modularization cases of service robots. Based on this, we have deducted considerations for applying social service robot modularization and proposed a new modularization. This study divided the module into active module and passive module according to whether it is electric or electronic component of the module, and the active module was again classified into basic module and additional module according to the basic and replacement type of the robot. The modularization was verified by making the prototype of the actual robot.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.6 no.10
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• pp.499-508
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• 2016

According to spreading K-pop globally, the market size related to K-pop stars is increasingly growing at home and abroad. Recently, services and products having direct interaction with the star are emerging. This research aims to propose a new service using a smart, connected social robotic figure that can support interaction between fans and K-pop stars. For this study, we begin by exploring literature about K-pop culture. Also, we investigate cases that connect between fans and stars and then build the development directions for a new service. Based on these development directions, we extract feasible technology and its interaction elements through analysing the cases of social robots. Finally, we propose the social robotic figure service in this research. This service proposed in this study can create and enhance diverse bidirectional communication between fans and stars through employing a user-customized, smart, connected figure based on a IoT platform. This research contributes to approaches for sustainable advance of K-pop through applying IoT technology.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.931-940
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• 2012

Social networking services which spreading rapidly is a system using interrelationship of people by internet or mobile. SNS is a network system of the human-centered. In this paper, in order to make robot become a member of social networks we studied the necessary elements and formation. For robot with communication function and sensing, autonomous, collision avoidance method and communication protocol is needed to let Robot share the present conditions dangerous or special situation. We realized this after investigating necessary sensor for SNS, studying robot's collision-avoidance method, and defining protocol of robot for SNS. Also, we suggested and implemented the wired and wireless integrated communications method.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.55-78
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• 2021

Tosolve complex and diverse social problems and ensure the quality of life of individuals, social robots that can interact with humans are attracting attention. In the past, robots were recognized as beings that provide labor force as they put into industrial sites on behalf of humans. However, the concept of today's robot has been extended to social robots that coexist with humans and enable social interaction with the advent of Smart technology, which is considered an important driver in most industries. Specifically, there are service robots that respond to customers, the robots that have the purpose of edutainment, and the emotionalrobots that can interact with humans intimately. However, popularization of robots is not felt despite the current information environment in the modern ICT service environment and the 4th industrial revolution. Considering social interaction with users which is an important function of social robots, not only the technology of the robots but also other factors should be considered. The design elements of the robot are more important than other factors tomake consumers purchase essentially a social robot. In fact, existing studies on social robots are at the level of proposing "robot development methodology" or testing the effects provided by social robots to users in pieces. On the other hand, consumer emotions felt from the robot's appearance has an important influence in the process of forming user's perception, reasoning, evaluation and expectation. Furthermore, it can affect attitude toward robots and good feeling and performance reasoning, etc. Therefore, this study aims to verify the effect of appearance of social robot and consumer emotions on consumer's attitude toward social robot. At this time, a social robot design evaluation model is constructed by combining heterogeneous data from different sources. Specifically, the three quantitative indicator data for the appearance of social robots from the ABOT Database is included in the model. The consumer emotions of social robot design has been collected through (1) the existing design evaluation literature and (2) online buzzsuch as product reviews and blogs, (3) qualitative interviews for social robot design. Later, we collected the score of consumer emotions and attitudes toward various social robots through a large-scale consumer survey. First, we have derived the six major dimensions of consumer emotions for 23 pieces of detailed emotions through dimension reduction methodology. Then, statistical analysis was performed to verify the effect of derived consumer emotionson attitude toward social robots. Finally, the moderated regression analysis was performed to verify the effect of quantitatively collected indicators of social robot appearance on the relationship between consumer emotions and attitudes toward social robots. Interestingly, several significant moderation effects were identified, these effects are visualized with two-way interaction effect to interpret them from multidisciplinary perspectives. This study has theoretical contributions from the perspective of empirically verifying all stages from technical properties to consumer's emotion and attitudes toward social robots by linking the data from heterogeneous sources. It has practical significance that the result helps to develop the design guidelines based on consumer emotions in the design stage of social robot development.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.129-149
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• 2021

Recently, interest in social robots that can socially interact with humans is increasing. Thanks to the development of ICT technology, social robots have become easier to provide personalized services and emotional connection to individuals, and the role of social robots is drawing attention as a means to solve modern social problems and the resulting decline in the quality of individual lives. Along with the interest in social robots, the spread of social robots is also increasing significantly. Many companies are introducing robot products to the market to target various target markets, but so far there is no clear trend leading the market. Accordingly, there are more and more attempts to differentiate robots through the design of social robots. In particular, anthropomorphism has been studied importantly in social robot design, and many approaches have been attempted to anthropomorphize social robots to produce positive effects. However, there is a lack of research that systematically describes the mechanism by which anthropomorphism for social robots is formed. Most of the existing studies have focused on verifying the positive effects of the anthropomorphism of social robots on consumers. In addition, the formation of anthropomorphism of social robots may vary depending on the individual's motivation or temperament, but there are not many studies examining this. A vague understanding of anthropomorphism makes it difficult to derive design optimal points for shaping the anthropomorphism of social robots. The purpose of this study is to verify the mechanism by which the anthropomorphism of social robots is formed. This study confirmed the effect of the human-likeness of social robots(Within-subjects) and the construal level of consumers(Between-subjects) on the formation of anthropomorphism through an experimental study of 3×2 mixed design. Research hypotheses on the mechanism by which anthropomorphism is formed were presented, and the hypotheses were verified by analyzing data from a sample of 206 people. The first hypothesis in this study is that the higher the human-likeness of the robot, the higher the level of anthropomorphism for the robot. Hypothesis 1 was supported by a one-way repeated measures ANOVA and a post hoc test. The second hypothesis in this study is that depending on the construal level of consumers, the effect of human-likeness on the level of anthropomorphism will be different. First, this study predicts that the difference in the level of anthropomorphism as human-likeness increases will be greater under high construal condition than under low construal condition.Second, If the robot has no human-likeness, there will be no difference in the level of anthropomorphism according to the construal level. Thirdly,If the robot has low human-likeness, the low construal level condition will make the robot more anthropomorphic than the high construal level condition. Finally, If the robot has high human-likeness, the high construal levelcondition will make the robot more anthropomorphic than the low construal level condition. We performed two-way repeated measures ANOVA to test these hypotheses, and confirmed that the interaction effect of human-likeness and construal level was significant. Further analysis to specifically confirm interaction effect has also provided results in support of our hypotheses. The analysis shows that the human-likeness of the robot increases the level of anthropomorphism of social robots, and the effect of human-likeness on anthropomorphism varies depending on the construal level of consumers. This study has implications in that it explains the mechanism by which anthropomorphism is formed by considering the human-likeness, which is the design attribute of social robots, and the construal level of consumers, which is the way of thinking of individuals. We expect to use the findings of this study as the basis for design optimization for the formation of anthropomorphism in social robots.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.211-227
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• 2023

Personal service robots, a type of social robot that has emerged with the aging population and technological advancements, are undergoing a transformation centered around technologies that can extend independent living for older adults in their homes. For older adults to accept and use social robot innovations in their daily lives on a long-term basis, it is crucial to have a deeper understanding of user perspectives, contexts, and emotions. This research aims to comprehensively understand older adults by utilizing a mixed-method approach that integrates quantitative and qualitative data. Specifically, we employ the Van Kaam phenomenological methodology to group conversations into nine categories based on emotional cues and conversation participants as key variables, using voice conversation records between older adults and social robots. We then personalize the conversations based on frequency and weight, allowing for user segmentation. Additionally, we conduct profiling analysis using demographic data and health indicators obtained from pre-survey questionnaires. Furthermore, based on the analysis of conversations, we perform K-means cluster analysis to classify older adults into three groups and examine their respective characteristics. The proposed model in this study is expected to contribute to the growth of businesses related to understanding users and deriving insights by providing a methodology for segmenting older adult s, which is essential for the future provision of social robots with caregiving functions in everyday life.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.469-489
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• 2021

This study explores consumers' responses to socially assistive robotics by using text-mining method focusing on Companion Pets from Hasbro as it gives emotional support. We conducted text frequency analysis, LDA analysis using R programming. The key findings are 1)the most frequently used words the mimicry of living pets and the appearance of companion pets, 2)the five topics were derived from the LDA analysis and classified keywords in each topic split between positive and negative, 3)user, product, environment affect the interaction between consumer and companion pets, 4)consumers who have difficulty in cognition and physical conditions use companion pets to replace living pets. This study provides an understanding of consumer responses in companion pets and gives practical implications that may improve the efficacy of usage for consumers and understand the companion robot, which provides emotional support in COVID-19.