Comparison of Stress Relief Effects in Short-term Interaction with Robot-assisted Activity and Stuffed Animal-assisted Activity

Although animal-assisted activity is attracting attention as one of mental health measures, it has many problems in its implementation. We compared stress relief effects in short-term interaction of robot-assisted activity and stuffed animal-assisted activity, which are complementing activities for animal-assisted activity. We confirmed that psychological stress relief effects, especially reducing tension, depression, and confusion and improving vigor, obtained by robot-assisted activity are significantly higher than that obtained by stuffed animal-assisted activity. On the other hand, no significant difference could be confirmed in physiological stress relief effects. Although negative feelings of unsatisfactory due to lack of reactions decreased psychological stress relief effects, some kind of interaction caused by softness were suppressed decreasing physiological stress relief effects combination with physiological stress relief effects by contact with soft things. These are assumed to be factors that results of psychological and physiological evaluations are different.