Purpose: Mutual acceptance is required for any human-to-human interaction. Therefore, one would assume that this also holds for robot-patient interactions. However, the medical robotic imaging field lacks research in the area of acceptance. This work, therefore, aims at analyzing the influence of robot-patient interactions on acceptance in an exemplary medical robotic imaging system. Methods: We designed an interactive human-robot scenario, including auditive and gestural cues, and compared this pipeline to a non-interactive scenario. Both scenarios were evaluated through a questionnaire to measure acceptance. Heart rate monitoring was also used to measure stress. The impact of the interaction was quantified in the use case of robotic ultrasound scanning of the neck. Results: We conducted the first user study on patient acceptance of robotic ultrasound. Results show that verbal interactions impacts trust more than gestural ones. Furthermore, through interaction, the robot is perceived to be friendlier. The heart rate data indicates that robot-patient interaction could reduce stress. Conclusion: Robot-patient interactions are crucial for improving acceptance in medical robotic imaging systems. While verbal interaction is most important, the preferred interaction type and content are participant-dependent. Heart rate values indicate that such interactions can also reduce stress. Overall, this initial work showed that interactions improve patient acceptance in medical robotic imaging, and other medical robot-patient systems can benefit from the design proposals to enhance acceptance in interactive scenarios.

翻译：目的：任何人际互动都需要相互接受。因此，人们通常会认为这一原则同样适用于机器人与患者的互动。然而，医学机器人影像领域在患者接受度方面的研究尚存空白。为此，本研究旨在以典型医学机器人影像系统为例，分析机器人-患者互动对接受度的影响。方法：我们设计了一个包含听觉和手势线索的人机交互场景，并将其与非交互场景进行对比。两种场景均通过问卷调查评估接受度，同时采用心率监测测量压力水平。在颈部机器人超声扫描的应用案例中量化了互动的影响。结果：我们开展了关于患者对机器人超声扫描接受度的首次用户研究。结果表明，语言互动对信任的影响大于手势互动。此外，通过互动，机器人被认为更加友好。心率数据显示，机器人-患者互动可能有助于降低压力。结论：机器人-患者互动对于提升医学机器人影像系统的患者接受度至关重要。尽管语言互动最为关键，但参与者对互动类型和内容的偏好存在个体差异。心率数值表明此类互动还能减轻压力。总体而言，这项初步研究表明互动能提升医学机器人影像中的患者接受度，其他医学机器人-患者系统也可借鉴本文提出的交互场景设计方案来增强患者接受度。