Robotic Mirror Game for movement rehabilitation

We present findings on applying the Mirror Game, a technique borrowed from Improvisational Theater, to human-robot interaction, with the ultimate goal of using this game in a rehabilitative physical therapy setting. In our study, participants played the mirror game with a collocated embodied physical robot, the Kinova Mico robotic arm, or with a video projection of the robot. We expected to find a strong preference for interacting with the embodied robot vs. with its screen projection. While our findings do show a preference for the physical robot condition, the virtual rendition of the robotic arm also received positive feedback from the participants. The results suggest that a virtual environment may be a reasonable substitute for an embodied system under certain conditions. Given the significant costs of using actual robots in therapy, we believe it is important to identify where simulations are sufficient and real robots may not be needed.