A Personal-Space Robot to Assist People With Social Anxiety

While I personally never ever not once have I ever suffered from any sort of social anxiety, I recognize that it's a thing that people can struggle with. And especially for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), social situations can be very challenging. Part of the difficulty lies in insufficient or excessive agency cues (nonverbal social signals that include gaze, facial expression, and personal distance), and while there's been a substantial amount of research towards helping people with ASD improve their cognitive skills, researchers in Japan are trying a different approach through a'comfortable information environment" called the Mobile Personal Space. The Mobile Personal Space (MPS) is a physical shell that completely encloses an individual with social anxiety. Once you're in there, you can't see anybody, and nobody can see you.