{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03mb6wj31","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"},{"id":"https:\/\/www.isni.org\/000000041937028X","id-type":"ISNI","asserted-by":"publisher"},{"id":"https:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q1640731","id-type":"wikidata","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya","acronym":["UPC"]}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T15:23:58Z","timestamp":1785425038793,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Catalunya","license":[{"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>(English) There are 50 million people worldwide living with dementia, and this number is projected to triple by 2050. While there are no pharmacological treatments for this syndrome, behavioural therapy such as cognitive training can maintain or improve the patients' general cognitive functioning, eventually prolonging ageing in place. However, the number of patients who require such treatment greatly exceeds the number of healthcare professionals' availability.\r\n\r\nRobots have the potential to bridge this gap by facilitating this training regimen and enhancing therapists\u2019 effectiveness in delivering cognitive therapy.\r\nA key enabling technology is personalisation. Indeed, the ability to personalise such treatments to suit the preferences and goals of an individual is crucial to improving the quality and efficacy of the intervention and increasing users\u2019 engagement over long-term interactions. \r\nDespite the recent advances, many questions still need to be addressed regarding the design, development, and deployment of social robots for such purposes.\r\n\r\nThis thesis postulates a set of these questions with which we aim to pursue our main goal: the development of a fully autonomous robot for delivering cognitive training. In the scope of this thesis, we tackled personalisation by designing robots that are both adaptable and adaptive. Adaptable in such a manner as to enable therapists to set them up and customise their high-level behaviour. Adaptive in such a manner that they can tailor their intervention to suit the individual\u2019s unique needs as they evolve through time.\r\nBuilding upon this idea, the work has taken a therapist-oriented approach in which healthcare professionals\u2019 expertise can be reflected in the design of a set of functionalities needed for the development and deployment of a personalised fully autonomous robotic system. Toward such a goal, this thesis explores the impact of robots' human-like characteristics, such as personality, communication style, and backchannelling behaviour, on the users\u2019 intention to use the robot and their task performance. On the other hand, it investigates several AI techniques for robots' reasoning, aiming at learning socially assistive behaviour that better suits the user's abilities.\r\n\r\nThis thesis culminates by proposing a novel framework called aCtive leARning agEnt aSsiStive bEhaviouR (CARESSER). CARESSER enables therapists to customise the robot\u2019s assistive behaviour (adaptable) and allows the robot to learn in situ personalised patient-specific policies (adaptive) in a fully autonomous fashion. Through the development and evaluation of CARESSER, this work contributes to both the fields of HRI and AI, especially on how social robots can learn by leveraging therapists' expertise and demonstrations, which has the benefits of speeding up the learning process, eliminating the need for the design of complex reward functions, and finally, avoiding undesired states that may have a negative impact on the patients.<\/jats:p>\n                <jats:p>(Espa\u00f1ol) En el mundo hay 50 millones de personas que conviven con demencia, y se espera que este n\u00famero se triplique para 2050. Mientras no existen tratamientos farmacol\u00f3gicos para este s\u00edndrome, terapia comportamental como el entrenamiento cognitivo, puede mantener o mejorar el funcionamiento cognitivo general de los pacientes, eventualmente, prolongando el envejecimiento en casa. Sin embargo, el n\u00famero de pacientes que requieren tal tratamiento excede en gran medida el n\u00famero de profesionales m\u00e9dicos disponibles. Los robots tienen el potencial de cerrar esta brecha, facilitando este tipo de entrenamiento y mejorando la efectividad de los terapeutas en su tarea de terapia cognitiva. \r\nUna tecnolog\u00eda habilitadora clave es la personalizaci\u00f3n. De hecho, la habilidad de personalizar tales tratamientos para adaptarse a las preferencias y objetivos de un individuo, es crucial para mejorar la calidad y eficacia de la intervenci\u00f3n e incrementar el compromiso de los usuarios durante interacciones a largo plazo. A pesar de los recientes avances, muchas cuestiones acerca del dise\u00f1o, desarrollo y despliegue de robots sociales para esos prop\u00f3sitos necesitan ser tratadas todav\u00eda.\r\n\r\nEsta tesis postula un conjunto de estas cuestiones con las cuales intentamos perseguir nuestro objetivo principal: el desarrollo de un robot completamente aut\u00f3nomo para proporcionar entrenamiento cognitivo. En el \u00e1mbito de esta tesis, abordamos la personalizaci\u00f3n dise\u00f1ando robots que son adaptables y adaptativos. Adaptables de manera que permitan a los terapeutas configurarlos y personalizar su comportamiento de alto nivel. Adaptativos de manera que ellos mismos puedan confeccionar su intervenci\u00f3n para adaptarse a las necesidades \u00fanicas del individuo a medida que \u00e9stas cambian a lo largo del tiempo. \r\nConstruyendo sobre esta idea, el trabajo ha tomado una direcci\u00f3n orientada al terapeuta, en la que la experiencia de los profesionales de asistencia m\u00e9dica puede ser reflejada en el dise\u00f1o de un conjunto de funcionalidades que se necesitan para el desarrollo y el despliegue de un sistema rob\u00f3tico completamente aut\u00f3nomo. Hacia ese objetivo, esta tesis explora el impacto de caracter\u00edsticas rob\u00f3ticas parecidas a las humanas, como la personalidad, el estilo de comunicaci\u00f3n, y canalizaci\u00f3n del comportamiento, en la intenci\u00f3n de los usuarios de utilizar el robot y en su rendimiento en la tarea. Por otro lado, la tesis investiga diversas t\u00e9cnicas de Inteligencia Artificial para el razonamiento rob\u00f3tico, intentando aprender el comportamiento socialmente asistivo que mejor se adapta a las habilidades del usuario. \r\n\r\nEsta tesis culmina proponiendo una infraestructura novedosa llamada \u201caCtive leARning agEnt aSsiStive bEhaviouR (CARESSER)''. CARESSER capacita a los terapeutas  a personalizar el comportamiento asistente del robot (adaptable), y permite al robot aprender reglas personalizadas espec\u00edficas para cada paciente \u201cin situ'' (adaptativo). Durante el desarrollo y evaluaci\u00f3n de CARESSER, este trabajo contribuye a los campos de interacci\u00f3n entre humano y robot y el de la inteligencia artificial. Especialmente en c\u00f3mo los robots sociales pueden aprender haciendo uso de la experiencia y las demostraciones de los terapeutas, que tiene los beneficios de acelerar el proceso de aprendizaje, eliminando la necesidad de dise\u00f1ar complejas  funciones de recompensa, y finalmente, evitando estados indeseados que puedan tener un impacto negativo en los pacientes.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.5821\/dissertation-2117-408156","type":"dissertation","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,21]],"date-time":"2024-11-21T01:25:39Z","timestamp":1732152339000},"approved":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,13]]},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Personalising robot assistance for cognitive training therapy"],"prefix":"10.5821","author":[{"given":"Antonio","family":"Andriella","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"3865","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"contributor":[{"sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[null]}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,27]],"date-time":"2026-07-27T05:28:33Z","timestamp":1785130113000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2117\/408156"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Guillem","family":"Aleny\u00e0 Ribas","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]},{"given":"Carme","family":"Torras","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[null]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5821\/dissertation-2117-408156","relation":{},"subject":[]}}