{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,25]],"date-time":"2026-05-25T08:03:24Z","timestamp":1779696204449,"version":"3.53.1"},"reference-count":71,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,18]],"date-time":"2026-05-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1779062400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J. Intell."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Social robots hold promise for enhancing later-life support, but user needs and preferences for multimodal interaction modalities remain underexplored. This study explores awareness, willingness, perceived barriers, and modality\u2013function associations across multiple interaction modalities among middle-aged and older adults, and proposes a conceptual five-layer architecture for design guidance. A questionnaire survey with 199 Chinese respondents (aged 45\u201364: 89.4%, 65+: 10.6%) examined perceptions of voice, visual, gestural, affective, sEMG, and brain\u2013computer interface interactions. Voice and visual modalities were the most preferred; gesture and affective interactions were moderately accepted; awareness of sEMG was high but may reflect confusion with other sensor technologies; and BCI awareness and willingness were low. Based on survey findings and the literature, a conceptual five-layer architecture is presented to inform future social-robot design. The sample predominantly comprised middle-aged participants, so findings reflect prospective later-life users rather than the broader older-adult population. This study offers user-centered insights into multimodal social-robot interaction and provides design implications for future development rather than evaluating emotional-health interventions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jintelligence14050085","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,25]],"date-time":"2026-05-25T06:42:18Z","timestamp":1779691338000},"page":"85","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["User Needs and Preferences for Multimodal Interaction in Social Robots for Later-Life Support: An Exploratory Survey and Conceptual Five-Layer Architecture"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-4493-4497","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ye","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yuqi","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Design, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e018815","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjopen-2017-018815","article-title":"Scoping review on the use of socially assistive robot technology in elderly care","volume":"8","author":"Abdi","year":"2018","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Abdollahi, H., Mollahosseini, A., Lane, J. 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