A Social Humanoid Robot to Deliver Cognitive Flexibility Training for Healthy Adults

Depression and anxiety symptoms often are exacerbated by unhelpful thoughts and beliefs. Identifying unhelpful, automatic thoughts and instead holding alternate thoughts can be termed cognitive flexibility. This trial is a single-arm, pilot project to evaluate whether a humanoid social robot can deliver a digitised version of an intervention that can help to teach people skills related to cognitive flexibility, and to improve their use of cognitive flexibility on completion of the session. This trial aims to evaluate the feasibility, preliminary effectiveness, and delivery method of a novel robot-delivered intervention. The use of a humanoid social robot offers a new delivery mechanism for well-established cognitive flexibility interventions. Potential significance includes the capacity to help young adults to improve cognitive flexibility with the secondary aim to potentially reduce the prevalence of thought patterns that can lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety. The novel robot delivery method may assist with scaling and with people who are uncomfortable seeking support from a counsellor or psychologist. Participants will complete online questionnaires at Baseline and Post-Intervention (2-weeks), and complete a 45-minute intervention session led by the Pepper robot, which will deliver an adapted version of a psychotherapeutic treatment related to cognitive flexibility through the Pepper robot, which is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This intervention will be delivered both as an in-person test, as well as remote/online as an alterative to those who are unable to attend the in-person session. Participants will engage with the intervention by progressing through the content steps provided during the session.